


Tradition

by hauntedpoem



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Age Difference, Angst, Attempted Seduction, Character Death, Consensual Kink, Controversial relationship, Daddy Kink, Dirty Talk, Drinking, Elf Sex, Explicit Consent, Feels, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Incest, Jealousy, Kink Negotiation, Loss, M/M, Male Slash, Mind the Tags, Obsession, Pining, Threesome - M/M/M, eventual thrandolas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-09-08 10:21:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 23,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8840860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hauntedpoem/pseuds/hauntedpoem
Summary: Tradition dictates that no elf, upon leaving the king's table, shall refuse an offered drink. Meludir's plan backfires when he spikes the prince's wine.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [catarrhini](https://archiveofourown.org/users/catarrhini/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meludir spikes Legolas' wine. Thranduil intervenes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check catarrhini's [Sixteen blue](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7856410/chapters/17939230) fic. It has drama, lots of psychological stuff, well-developed characters, tons of feels and Thrandolas. It's damn well written! I created a fic playlist for her work and if you like, you can check it on [8tracks](http://8tracks.com/hauntedpoem/16blue) or on [youtube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4_ie7WjUTfC-xvuMG61-qCq0kaRdnh1k).  
> ~  
> AN:  
> I realise that this fic is not going to be everyone's cup of tea. I need to warn you in advance that this is not necessarily a story with a happy-ending. Heed the warnings and keep an open mind. That's all the advice I can give you.  
> Enjoy!

All that he could think of was that the elf looked adorable with wine flushed cheeks. Meludir smiled and laughed at the table with the heedlessness of youth, while Feren kept pouring more wine for him. King Thranduil savoured the red Dorwinion in silence, his icy blue eyes scanning the crowd of inebriated Silvans and in doing so, he made mental notes of things that happened recently.

Legolas had just returned from Imladris after informing Elrond of the recent developments in orc incursions. Tauriel was on leave, mourning after her lost love and Thranduil couldn't help but feel a dangerous desire to see her suffer some more. In a matter of weeks, she lost her glow, chopped all her pretty hair and became maudlin and ungrateful. In response, Thranduil demoted her. It had been... _tragic_ \- what happened with the dwarf - but he couldn't allow her insolence and her accusations to poison and confuse the rest of his guards.

  
As for now, he was stuck here, watching them enjoying another day away from the shadow's ever-extending influence. However, the king could not leave his throne and lose himself in their revelry and drinking games. He could not abandon his people to the common pleasures of rich food and merry company. The recent news was dire, as presented by the message from Imladris. The folk needed his guidance like they needed air, now more than ever. Sindar and Silvan alike were his greatest concern, their well-being his primary focus. It was well known among the elves that after the darkness of Dol Guldur, the safety of his kingdom came before anything else on Arda. His kingdom and his son, both occupied first place in Thranduil's heart. Legolas belonged to the once majestic Greenwood, Legolas _was_ Greenwood. One couldn't be without the other. Legolas' identity formed here, under the ancient trees, he was part of it, part of every unfurled leaf, part of every emerald fern, part of every stalactite of this wondrous cavern. Yet... To the king's distress, Legolas also belonged to the world, to Arda itself, where many adventures and dangers awaited him.  
Legolas was hope, that's why Thranduil had to share him with the rest of the realm.

  
A strident laughter reached his ears and the king knew it was Meludir. Youthful, callow, impudent Meludir who almost got turned into a juicy meal by one of Ungoliant's most dreadful spawns. Careless Meludir.   
The name of the guard felt rich and heavy like honey on his lips. It was like a pleasant song, warm, promising.  
Sitting at the table among the rest of the guards, the elven youth engaged in drinking contests with some of the most ill-reputed drunkards: Galion, his own seneschal, a Dorwinion and brandy addict. His son drank and laughed with the new captain of the Guard, Elros, but in his eyes, Thranduil could read restraint, order, authority.

The young ones grew restless. Lethuin draped himself on his son's back and almost cried with laughter. For just an instant, the king was afraid that in his ineptitude and poor self-control, Lethuin might wet himself from laughing so hard. From the corner of his eye, he noticed Meludir extracting something from a pouch and mixing it with his drink. He looked like a man on a mission, focused on the task, unaware of the king's all seeing eyes. Meludir was a man obsessed.

Just then, his son admitted defeat and with a 'clang', extricated himself from Lethuin's sensual embrace and Galion's alcoholic tendencies. His empty goblet lay abandoned. An icy, intent stare followed Legolas, remarking again on Meludir's surreptitious disappearance. And then, his eyes have finally found his guard, behaving oddly, trying to catch the attention of his son. As was tradition, he presented Legolas with a full goblet, doe eyes intent and beseeching.

Not looking twice at him, his son grasped the recipient and was about to drink it in one go.

Of course! How could he be so blind?!

Thranduil moved fast, descending from his dais. " _Legolas_!" He shouted in a commanding tone and his son immediately turned to attention. His lips lay untouched by the foul, tampered-with wine. Silence descended only to be drowned again in Galion's bawdy song about a very clever elf-maid.

"Give it to me," he extended his hand and pierced the guard's terrified eyes. He could read Meludir like a book.

"I shall drink this in your place," the king said resolutely, a foreboding mien settling upon him. "You," he said, pointing to his son's chest,  "should rest and prepare for tomorrow. We have to reinforce the eastern bank of the river." 

He put the silver goblet to his lips. It smelled pungent, too sweet, like overripe fruit.

And so he drank, gulping it down and staring all the while into Meludir's terrified eyes. Warmth descended upon Thranduil, spread like wildfire into his limbs, tore apart at his chest. He filled, overflowing with lust. Of course, it was not beneath a lowly guard to present his only son and heir with a poisoned drink, just to have him for one night, irregardless of the consequences. With eyes aflame and a mounting libido, the king grasped the youth's shoulder, his voice a punishing promise. Pushing his body against Meludir's, he felt his cock hardening, his heartbeat accelerating. He was strong and hot against him, he could easily overpower his guard.

Always in control, despite the drowsiness induced by the poisoned wine, Thranduil put his hands to good use restricting Meludir's way. The little scoundrel will not run away from this mess! His hand descended lazily and started moving in circular patterns over Meludir's doeskin breeches. Such a pert bottom! Meludir gasped at the touch. Such flushed cheeks! The younger elf started worrying at his bottom lip to prevent any more undignified sounds to get out. Thranduil delighted in the shame and humiliation awaiting this little conniving spawn! 

Meludir had the common sense to actually blush.

How wonderful!

"I shall enjoy this, you fool," Thranduil rasped in his ear and pushed Meludir into the shadows of the corridor. "Lead the way to my chambers, I'll help you reap what you sow."

Meludir's skin bruised easily. That's what the king noticed as he devoured with bites and kisses the pale youthful neck. Meludir trembled, propped on his stronger body, skin red and angry, breath rapid and panicky. He moved behind the guard, his hand steering the youth through the labyrinthine path. "I'll bend you in two and fuck you hard, just like you dreamed my son would do to you." 

Meludir shivered and as there appeared to be no end to his impudence, he dared moaning his pleasure out loud. "I'm going to have you impaled on my cock, a helpless thing, writhing and crying for me to let you come! Oh you'll beg and you'll wish you did not cross my path."

Oh, he will enjoy this very much, Thranduil mused, desire making him hasty to reach his suite. He loved it when the youth succumbed to his power and his eyes just clouded, as if tainted by Ungoliant's venomous touch. "You don't know what you asked for, my darling boy," his words came out drawled and dripped with unholy appetite. It was a miracle Meludir did not faint but continued walking slowly, wobbly on his feet, shivering, every limb weak, his face aflame. "I'll fill you up every night and make a sated whore out of you. You better pay for your tactless effrontery to my son." 

His anger rose and welded with his lust. It was almost raw, unpleasant in the urgency.

"Say you _will_ ," Thranduil rasped while with frantic eyes he searched Meludir's face for any trace of treachery. He searched for a sign, for an acceptance of this appropriate punishment.

With a half swallowed sigh, Meludir answered in agreement, although blushing shamefully all the while.

"I will, my king," he murmured with downcast eyes and Thranduil was sure he already had his full submission and consent. But then, the youth's eyes flicked with a strange, petulant gleam, challenging him. "...gladly."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [This](http://backbaybnb.com/i/2015/08/part-design-of-wine-cellar-of-wood-materials-ideas-945x628.jpg) is the amount of wine Thranduil needs to drink to actually feel a tingling in his fingers.  
>  Also, [here](http://backbaybnb.com/i/2015/08/marvelous-underground-wine-cellars-inspirations-wine-cellars-ideas-945x630.jpg), [some](http://backbaybnb.com/i/2015/08/wine-cellar-in-line-racks-design-ideas-945x630.jpg) [more](http://backbaybnb.com/i/2015/08/large-sized-wine-cellar-design-ideas.jpg) [visual](http://backbaybnb.com/i/2015/08/wine-cellar-residence-in-classic-design-945x630.jpg) [inspiration](http://backbaybnb.com/i/2015/08/wine-cellar-storage-ideas-615x410.jpg) for you, people!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thranduil invites the naughty Silvan to his quarters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nothing but UST and dirty talk for now.

Under torch light, two figures barely made it to a grandiose granite staircase.They evaded several servants and guards and the king must have found it rather amusing to be hiding in his own kingdom. He half-guided, half-pushed Meludir towards his suite of chambers. With a laboured exhale, he shut the door and secured it with a key.

 Meludir looked around with large, impressionable eyes. The room was overwhelming in its vastness. Lamps and crystals directed the light through every nook and cranny and warmed the sitting room as if it were summer again. He suddenly felt small and insignificant among the elegant display over the polished precious stone and rare wood furnishings.

An uncomfortable weight settled into his stomach as he heard the man rustling behind him.

“Out of my way!” Thranduil’s voice sounded caustic yet very controlled. "If I knew you were so slow to react I wouldn't have allowed you to be part of my guard!"

 It now gained a raspy quality that was otherwise absent from his every day commanding speech. “Move,” Thranduil actually pushed him further, commandingly. He walked into another room which looked like a library and then they climbed the stairs hidden behind a large bookcase. 

Thranduil actually went ahead of him and opened a door concealed by heavy drapes. Meludir followed as if hypnotised. It took him a while to digest what was going on and he became unsettled by the stoical display on the king's face. Upon entering, he noticed that the room was an exquisite display of riches and comfort. A four poster bed was the main attraction. With an exhausted sigh, Thranduil seated himself on the bed and proceeded to take off his boots.

“Allow me, your majesty,” he mumbled the words sheepishly and he almost cursed himself when they sounded eager instead of respectful.

Thranduil actually huffed. He made no sign to allow help and busied himself with the task at hand.  
In the hearth, the fire roared, consuming another log.

“You’ve done enough, Meludir.” His voice was strained, barely in control. Thranduil's hands moved with less focus now.

Meludir kept shyly throwing glances at the things around him.  The floor was made of dark-veined marble shining like the top of a lake at night. A fine green carpet adorned the portion near the bed. To the left, an armoire, to the right, a magnificent desk with a glowing lamp, parchment rolls, quills and ink bottles occupying its surface.  Chairs sculpted in the heart of oak, walls painted with the wonders of the once verdant and abundant Greenwood, silk sheets with the lustre of silver. Meludir was overwhelmed.

“You’re so quiet now,” Thranduil remarked, watching him intently. “Go through that door, you’ll reach my private bath. Clean yourself. I want you nice and fresh when I begin with you!” He gave these instructions as if Meludir was to go to his guarding-post overnight and give him some reports as was his duty in the morning. There was no anger in his voice - as Meludir expected for some unknown reason- but a storm was present in his eyes. Anticipation, not fear, started grasping Meludir’s heart.

  
"You know what to do," he added noticing the effect the words had on the younger elf. "Go and wash your pretty little boycunt, clean it carefully for me to use. You've agreed to let me fill you every night and... I... happen... to... love doing just that." He punctuated every word and Meludir felt as if he'd been the one who drank the potion. A surprising warmth and giddiness engulfed him. Thranduil started unbuttoning the top of his fine silk robe, pushing the material in a sumptuous display. His fine breeches which clung to his hips and legs perfectly were strained with the hardening of his arousal. Right in front of him, Thranduil started rubbing himself gently, carefully, eyes burning holes into Meludir.

Mesmerised, he swallowed hard, and his mouth suddenly went dry. This was already too much for him.

"If you make me wait, I'll be done without you... and trust me, boy, you don't want that to happen."

 The carefully chosen words hit their mark, threw him onto a plane of elation, made him light-headed.  
Head bowed low, Meludir followed the corridor to the bath, thinking of ways to end the ordeal of washing up before his desire made him faint there, on the marble floor before he actually reached his king's bed.  
 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> leave a comment, [Thranduil ](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/cc/cf/45/cccf45734d9b70a3548974e643201b02.jpg) will be very pleased! I swear, just look at him!  
> -  
> also... the use of the word "boycunt" or "boy cunt" or whatever you prefer is meant as part of Thranduil's dirty talk. Don't get confused. Meludir has all his boy parts and nothing more.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some background exploration on Meludir.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have any trouble picturing Meludir,[here](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/92/ea/84/92ea84f3decb02d11fa4f90e768b3c87.jpg) you go!

He lathered his body with precise brushes of soap and sponge. Meludir’s movements were mechanical, a habit of two centuries of living and training with the guard. Being an orphan, Meludir had only a vague idea about what one was expected to do when confronted with such emotionally frightening situations. He's been pining for the prince since he could shoot an arrow as a boy and the lack of attention and acknowledgement made him turn into himself and then to resort to desperate actions.  


How odd, that he never got exactly what he wanted but always something that involved a catch. As a boy of seventeen, he expected to be chosen to serve in the kitchens yet somehow, the king’s personal advisor saw him practising with the bow. He could have been serving bread and pouring wine for all his eternal life if king Thranduil wouldn’t have looked him once in the eye and asked him to shoot an arrow at him. He’d been scared but he followed his order. The king caught it just in time. “Never doubt my abilities again, boy,” he said.

So when the king sent him to get cleaned up, Meludir scrubbed his skin and rubbed fingers through his hair. Years of washing in close proximity to other men and women did nothing to appease the galloping frenzy of his heart. He poured liquid soap into his palm, took the sponge and started again, working under his arms and between his legs and deep inside him. He’d done this before. You can’t not experience it in 257 years of existence. Not when you know you might die any moment on a mission.

He’d had his first lover after the banquet in the honour of the new recruits. She was a proud Sinda with eyes like mithril and hair like the stars on a cold night. She could shoot a broken arrow and hit a target while running, she could throw a dagger hard enough to render an orc paralysed and she had a true talent for poetry. Meludir liked to listen to her and befriended her because he admired her. He fell obsessively in love with the prince and being very observant, his new friend taunted him about it. Until one night, when quietly, she took him by the hand, kissed him and said “Close your eyes” while she made love to him. Before she pushed herself over the edge with abandon, she whispered, “You can pretend I’m your prince” but he didn’t.  He didn’t pretend. In that moment, he forgot all about his obsession and it seemed small and insignificant to him. He didn’t close his eyes. How could he?

A while after, she had been caught in an ambush, and found hours later with a poisoned orc-made arrow protruding from her chest. Somehow, the dreadful tip found a weak spot in her armour. It punctured her lung and spread venom through her chest, abandoning her to die in agony. They found her with her eyes wide open yet clouded by death. Then, the prince and Tauriel led another attack and slaughtered the whole company of orcs. The obsession came back with a vengeance. Was it the pale hair, the starry eyes or the faraway look in them that undid him every time? Or was it their Sindar blood, so alike his own, wild, and made to worship Varda’s creations like all of the Calaquendi?

Soon, he started taking Silvan lovers, men, women, sometimes both at a time. Dark haired and lustful mouths. He stayed away from cruel reminders and for as long as it lasted, his mind was liberated from his thoughts of Legolas. Greedy hands and eager bodies. Most nights he would choose a tall, dark elf and submit to him in every aspect. He lay half conscious as the man would pound into his body with a relentless rhythm, subjected only to the rules of lust. After the man groaned his release and nuzzled sleepily into his aching neck, Meludir would lay beneath him, his face buried into the pillow while his mind escaped to some other place, the waves of pleasure rolling off his melting body, leaving him cool-headed enough to deal with his morning practice without a thought ambling insidiously in his mind.

Legolas insisted on strategizing with them and chose Meludir to accompany him on a few missions. Spending time alone with the prince while climbing trees and scouting for footprints, did ugly things to his imagination. He could not sleep for fear that his secret would slip away and could not eat for fear of coming across as savage. The prince looked at him with odd eyes and asked him a simple question “Are you unwell, elf?” to which he could not answer, struck by the terror of sounding like a simpleton. Legolas would take him a couple more times on easy, reconnaissance assignments, testing and teaching him at the same time. After a string of embarrassingly long and uneventful nights, after his silence overrode the prince’s attempts at small talk, he decided to finally do something about it and made a clumsy offer which made Legolas frown and shake his head with a gutted, ill at ease laughter.

 He would often take one of them on his wild excursions, mostly Tauriel but the king insisted on having her on his guard, thus limiting the time she spend with his son. Most knew the king was unreachable. His son was more accessible but blind to any other than Tauriel who in turn, refused to acknowledge him. To Meludir, it was all rather tragic. At least she knew love, or she claimed to, in that short amount of time while the battle lasted.

“I think your silence suits my father’s personal guard but your idea of spending the time does not suit mine.” And thus, he ended in Thranduil’s personal guard, a great honour at such a young age, one would say. Too bad that all he could see was Legolas, his back always turned to him.

He was now to be bedded by the king. There was no doubt about it. His fingers pushed deep inside of him and finding what they’ve been searching for, started moving at a frantic pace. The king was known to be a harsh, cold, weathered man but soon, he would be burning through him, claiming every inch of his skin and coating Meludir with the seed of his possession. He could accept that, couldn’t he? Without a shadow of a doubt, he would enjoy it. His own cock started filling as his fingers, now painted in soothing oil, were spreading inside his channel, in preparation for his majesty.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much for reading!   
> You're all very welcome!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the chapter in which [Thranduil](http://d.wattpad.com/story_parts/68068343/images/13a55b69ecba0bce.jpg) drinks a lot of wine and does a lot of stroking. Also, *lots*of*feels* so keep a blanket/tissues/tea/your favourite plushie nearby!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My previous chapter felt so... lonely, so I thought I should add another one. Yeah, this is all inspired by catarrhini's passing remark about Thranduil having his naughty way with Meludir.  
> ~  
> Enjoy, my adorable darlings!

When he reentered the king’s bedroom, Meludir couldn’t shake a creeping feeling of worthlessness and fear. Offences to the crown, trying to poison and lay with the king’s son, traitor of Mirkwood... and more.

The lights have been dimmed and immense and formless shadows were cast on the polished marble walls. Thranduil sat in his chair, seemingly perusing a piece of convolutedly written parchment at his desk. A glass of blood-red wine was dangling from his hand tipping the liquid dangerously close the edge.

“You may sit.” He seemed preoccupied and his voice sounded distant, yet not unpleasant to Meludir’s ears. He sat on the edge of the large bed, fingers running through his towelled hair, still damp from his ablutions. Minutes have passed and the erotic anticipation soon turned into a cold sludge of impropriety. Naked and uncertain, he covered himself with the quilt on the bed. 

Seemingly bored, Thranduil pushed the tomes and the parchment away.

“Come here,” he ordered. Turning half-way, he revealed a naked broad chest and a hard muscled abdomen as his cloak slipped off one shoulder. His icy eyes unsettled. Approaching the large desk, Meludir didn’t know what to do with himself. Fidgeting with his hands, he decided to keep them close to his chest, bunching the quilt around his body to preserve heat and decency but his hands were shaking.

The king’s eyes focused exactly on his display of weakness, worsening it. Crippling insecurity took over him. Everything blackened. Somewhere, in the corner of his eye, a flickering flame struggled to stay alive and casting eerie spectres on the wall. He chose to focus on that. With a cool edge, Thranduil now turned completely and faced him. He was regal even in his nudity. Just smooth planes of muscle and pale skin. Blond hair reaching his darkened nipples and a thatch of slightly darker curls surrounding a large, thick cock, which lay traitorously limp and satisfied on his muscled thigh. Lazily, he sipped his wine, taking pleasure in watching Meludir squirm.

“You did not expect me to be waiting for you hard and dripping like an adolescent randy boy, did you now? Even with your poisonous potion coursing through my body, I am still in control of myself.” His voice held mockery and something strangely threatening. With self-assured, slow movements he poured from the crystal pitcher more wine and handed it to Meludir.

“Drink. You’re too silent for my liking.”

He gulps it down as if it were muddy water. It wouldn’t settle right into his stomach, all lumps and knots with anticipation and uncertainty. “You took your time, I took mine, Meludir. A first born my age learns to resist even the most pressing needs, you see…” His voice dropped into a drawl, his legs stretched luxuriously onto the richly woven carpet, exposing his big, rosy organ, a smear of wetness glimmering at the bulging tip. “One learns a multitude of things. Age is like a fire that can be both self-extinguishing and self-nurturing. An age-old elf masters control, or... dies.” It takes a properly directed finger to unclasp Meludir’s hands and the cover drops to the floor all splendid emerald and silver.

It reveals Meludir's body and his jutting cock, half-hard, moistened at the tip. Just a youth, compared to elven life standards, with no distinguishing features except for a birth mark near the junction of thigh to hip. A wine stained leaf. Thranduil touches it and his fingers are deceivingly cold.

He shivers.

“My son, he never complained about you…” It’s yet a confirmation of Meludir’s fears. “I’ve seen you. Yes, plenty of times.” His eyes search for Meludir’s. There is infinity in that pale, shimmering colour. Nothing trembling out of place. “I’ve seen you watching him. I’ve seen you near him. I’ve seen you loitering in his presence unnecessarily.”

Something is wrong. Those eyes became unyielding in a matter of seconds. Like the precious gems he kept talking about. Hard and unbreakable. Meludir was frightened when a hand clasped his wrist and squeezed it painfully. “…seen you touch him without his permission, seen you make excuses for it, seen you try and have him for yourself.” He takes a deep breath as if he’s enumerating imported goods from other realms. “I do not take kindly to that, to someone touching, almost... violating what’s mine, mine alone. Do you understand?” Meludir nods. His voice is trapped in his throat and his arm hurts. The grip is unrelenting, nails dig into the skin. It's all as if his training as a soldier has been useless. He feels everything intensified.

“But he praised you to me, my son. He said you were agile, precise with a bow, great at eluding the enemy, yet fragile, that you needed mentorship, direction, still. That you were just a misguided, lonely boy. He took pity on you.” His voice is a soft whisper. “And so do I. Should I bed something my own son discarded? I could… But would you want that, now that you know that I share none of his sympathies?” Is this a trap? Because Meludir’s head is foggy. He cannot think. His tongue feels heavy from the wine and words unsaid. Too strong, too harsh.

“Should you leave, or should you stay? I know it’s a battle inside of you. You've never been good at thinking things through, have you?" Unhurriedly, as he does most things when the situation demands it Thranduil rises from his velvet-covered chair and stands upright. Tall, strong, pale, he is towering above Meludir's slight form. He’s as cold as Varda’s stars, not an emotion showing on his face. Just those eyes, still holding his own. Gutted like a fish, that’s how he feels. A finger trails along his chest, a game of indifference.

“I could have you, as a harsh master has one which basks in disobedience like a wild boar rolls in mud.” The hand which grasped his wrist so furiously tight now relents and travels up, to his lean bicep, a feather-like touch replacing it. This confuses Meludir further.

“I could break you and form you again to be mine forever, my Nandorin slut, tied to my bedpost, awaiting for months my arrival. Whip you, stripe you, mark you in any way, or I could just pretend you did not exist, that you’re still the invisible orphan that cried himself to sleep and played pretend at affection with one of my Sinda guards!” He barks these words and the shock of Thranduil finding such knowledge about him breaks the levee on his emotions. Tears pour forth. It’s useless being in control now. “You forget I know everything, you insolent Nandorin bastard!” Meludir cries now, almost relieved that the dam broke, with large gulps of air that make his lungs bulge and burn, with his nose dripping mucus and his teeth biting into his dry lips. This hurts so much. It must be a nightmare. It mustn’t be what he’d built himself for the past hour, this… cruelty, this verbal floundering. What else can he do except cry like a babe in front of his king? Is he a mindless, dirty second-born? Is he as asinine as a troll? This, this can’t be happening... although he has the worst feeling that it does happen, as the candle to the right burned itself out and a coil of smoke started dispersing in the air.

That hand, cold on his beating heart. Silence, only Meludir’s consumed sobs. His aching lungs. This tearing down of what he hoped could be his amends and his pleasure, not just a transaction but a way to serve and delight the one he never dreamed nor dared of touching before. Those fingers, tapping now gently where his heart tightens in his chest as if coaxing the muscle to calm itself down. A mere touch and the nipple is hardening into a tight pink nub and then several reddish hairs surrounding the areola are gripped painfully, as if ready to be pulled. Then the other hand does the same to his damp mahogany hair, disguised at first as a caress. Thranduil pulls hard, baring his slender throat. “Ai, my king!” Of course, it hurts. And this doesn't stop Thranduil from snaking a hand behind him and grasping viciously, crushingly, his bottom. His mind perceives this as an intrusion, this pain never belonged into amorous play. All he knew was the temporary burn of the breach, the slide of a well-oiled cock, the lapping of a tongue, pointed and tense, pleasure, a passing discomfort which soon melted. But never the sting. Never this deliberate bruising.

His eyes don’t focus well and his mind doesn’t comprehend. The spider stings, the abhorrent orc hurts. Why would the sting disguise itself as a trusted, tender touch? He really is simple-minded, unlearned, a dirty, backward Nandor!

“Yes, my boy,” Thranduil whispers now close to his ear, exhales near his jugular like a wild cat does to its prey. “Filled with trouble and disgraced. My dear, sweet boy. Foolish young thing that you are!” Most tenuously, he pulls him to his own chest, coats him to his skin like a second cloak that fits him not badly. A hand caressing his hair, tangled and still wet, only colder. The hand is slowly travelling down his back, mapping portions of his skin. “Say no to me, my young one. You don’t know what you want.” A kiss to his damp temple. Meludir's body, now devoid of fear of pain, feels peaceful. He’s always wanted to be cradled like this. "You can say no, Meludir." His voice is serious as if remembering something. In his youthful impatience, he is relieved that some of the tension dissipated yet the pensiveness to the king’s behaviour still unsettles him.  He doesn’t dare speak.

This is, after all, what he wanted. A tender caress, a loving embrace, ardour afterwards, the hard cock and the sure hands pressing into him. A mouth kissing him, into him, even biting his neck, claiming a day of his eternal life, giving one back. That blond hair as a curtain around his face as he sinks into the pillows. The servant doing what he knows best, serving his king. That touch is exceedingly gentle and tempting now but strangely bereft of any lascivity.

“I know,” Meludir shudders as Thranduil talks right into his ear. “… I know, my boy. You should say no.”

Is he waiting for an answer to that question? Because Meludir is so lost in this balmy haze that anything that would stop Thranduil’s veiled affection would be considered a crime. Instead, he rests into the touch, finding out with relief that his cheek fits nicely in Thranduil’s palm which is now warm as if the beat of his heart has somehow transpired to him. This feels so good when he’s not told off, this feels so, so good, Meludir never wants to let go. This sense of belonging, he can’t shake it off, he knows it’s genuine. No one touched him like this before. Sensual yet strangely… parental. This must be what Legolas feels on a daily basis. He belongs to this man, carries his blood. Meludir never knew whom he belonged to. An orphan since birth, no one but the crown to claim him. A babe squealing hungrily in a crude hut in the ground.

After a couple of dry swallows, he finds his voice. “Please, don’t let go of me. I’ll do anything. Anything.”

It’s strangely relieving, this admission. He realises he could care less if he loses everything as long as he has this touch on his cheek and a bare warm palm on his back, hands that pull him to a core, into someone, like he’s part of it. He fits here, he wants to say, and Thranduil doesn’t let go. His hands don’t recoil, his body doesn’t reject him.

“I wish I wasn’t a stupid Nandorin. To know what to do, not to displease you. I never wanted to displease you.”

Thranduil huffs. He appears amused.

“You didn’t displease me, just the crown; and you can’t help being what your blood dictates. In fact, I quite like your Nandorin foolishness.”

 

While his icy eyes bore into his, a hand strokes his face gently, parting his lips, making him shudder, the other searching lower, kneading muscle and parting his cheeks. Meludir moans. Thranduil’s fingers engaged themselves with the creased skin surrounding his tight hole and in their rigorousness, they search for moisture, only to spread it further around. These contrasts are at play in a single man and Meludir lets go of the tension that twisted inside him. Meludir is strangely aroused but now, more than ever, he feels aware of this specific part of his anatomy being paid attention to. His cock lays untouched yet he swears that a sticky, clear thread of precome is travelling sluggishly onto his thigh, reaching his knee.

A hand now untangling his long, mahogany hair, a finger of the other, working slowly, patiently inside of him. If he continues like this, Thranduil will find his rim dripping with oil, his rosy hole fluttering as his inner muscles work hard, as if milking a most delicious and kingly cock. He already feels the oil trying to escape the tight confines of his asshole. It’s arousing and embarrassing at the same time, yet so different in its lewdness from the innocent touch to his brow and the stroke to his cheek, the almost serene look of Thranduil’s eyes.

Another insistent and precise touch of Thranduil's long fingers and his hole tenses then flutters open. He knows he's gaping and he knows Thranduil must have felt it. Oil escapes, trickles down his thighs. Thranduil slaps and squelches into the wetness. Pulled into a frenzy of mind numbing sensations, Meludir utters it, quite unaware. “Nnngh… _Ada_ …” He can’t open his eyes because the words resonate into his chest and thus into Thranduil. And he too moans. He's most pleased by his discovery of the oil and his eyes look free, his features, wild - just like they’re supposed to be. A groan, and Thranduil pushes his own sticky erection into his stomach, the odd utterance spurring him on. Meludir can touch, can’t he?

Brazenly, his fingers skim over the hard muscle of Thranduil’s front and when his palm traps his hard, impressive cock, Meludir is kissed, his breath snuffed out of him and his mouth occupied by a wet, insistent tongue. He doesn’t let go and grows bolder in his exploration, encouraging the tip of the king's hardness to release the moisture, coating from shaft to base. His now swollen lips trap the intrusive tongue, sucking obediently on it until he gags, glistening saliva pouring down his chin.

Thranduil stops only to look at him appraisingly.

"Ada, kiss me."

Thranduil looks intensely at him, sees him, while pondering on what should be done. To hime, there are infinite options and all he has to do is settle on something. His finger retreats from Meludir's glossy hole and lands on his shoulder, while with the other hand, he's parting the tangled hair delicately to expose the Silvan’s long neck. The very finger that breached him now rests at the aperture of his lips, lingering there, waiting. Opening his mouth, Meludir tastes oil, lavender and other herbs. It’s bitter yet strangely compelling in its offbeat taste.

Thranduil then leans in and kisses him, all tongue and abandon. He kisses his lips, his cheeks, his chin, even swallows his own finger and grunts at the taste and then smirks, a shade of calculating coldness overcasting his eyes once again.

“Kneel, sweetling.”

And he can’t help it. This time, the movement is fluid, as if they’ve done this a million times.

"That's my boy!"

“Yes, Ada.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LE: *edited* //phew//  
> [because typos and such](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/65/4e/bc/654ebcd9a59816cdacf214e0360ca9d3.jpg)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Practically every five paragraphs or so, Meludir makes use of his *daddy kink* while Thranduil calls him his *sweet boy*. It's all supposed to be a mix of dirty-hot and bashful-sweet... although in different dosages.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this surprisingly fast. Three or four chapters to go.  
> Again, this has plenty of "talk" + anal fingering + cock stroking + praise + daddy kink. Thranduil treats his boy right. You get it. Don't worry if it starts feeling like an extended pwp. I swear, I have ideas for a plot. Trust me!  
> -  
> I mentioned Thranduil watching his subjects... particularly Meludir. Here's the fic that started my whole Thranduil/Meludir scenario. It's very PG-13 and uneventful in comparison to this one. Contains: *pining* Meludir, *oblivious/jealous* Legolas and vague Kili/Tauriel.  
> Check it out: [A good injury salve](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8166016)

Thranduil doesn’t deny that he envisioned this very moment taking place before. Sitting alone on his throne, above the halls where his people usually gathered, was bound to tickle his imagination. His mind played with many scenarios and he discarded and analysed each and every one of them. He’d been watching Meludir plenty of times. At practice, during the meals, while on patrolling duty, while in the healing houses. He knows all and sees all but sometimes, focusing too much on something can be detrimental. It might be a reason for the escape of the dwarves.

All this spying had been at first out of concern for his son. Then, curiosity took over. Seeing the Silvan rejected over and over again by Legolas proved to be both an entertainment and an infuriating display. There he had been, watching from his throne as Meludir would approach the prince, shy and bashful at first until his actions turned more and more desperate. One could brush them off as mistakes.

Thranduil has to admit that Meludir makes a delightful sight. He’s on his knees, eyes downcast, milky skin waiting for his touch. He’s stopped shivering but Thranduil wants to see him shiver again, this time with desire. He won’t make this easy. The elven king straightens himself and forgets about the tension in his cock for a while. Thranduil turns and goes to sit back in his regal chair, legs spread lazily, accommodatingly. More wine. He drinks slowly, lets the taste and the power of the concoction spread a tingling sensation through his limbs.

No, he definitely won’t make this easy for the Silvan but cruelty does not suit him either. Therefore, when he notices Meludir adjust himself on the floor, he lets go of a strenuous sigh. It’s easier with elves his age. Or closer to his age, however, the desire is unreciprocated, contrived, inferior, when one reaches the wisdom of ages past. Most women and men from the Greenwood lust after him. All know he had a wife who died and whose loss changed him forever. Thus, they never engage emotionally with him. Let him be cold as ice, let him be the king. He could have anyone but does he wish for anyone?

“Wait there.” He says, voice calm and calming.

He likes to see him relax again but making Meludir open up on a significant level is going to be hard work. They have little in common and constantly reassuring the youth reminds him too much of his time as a doting father to Legolas. The two aspects clash unpleasantly in his mind, although he knows he accepts Meludir's peculiarity out of his responsibility as the ruler of realm. He finds the bathing chamber the way Meludir left it. Messy. There’s water everywhere and he has to be careful unless he slips and everything remotely erotic that occupied his mind is going to be replaced by annoying healers and herbal compresses. No, he absolutely abhors that. The water is colder in the pool but he is swift and when he re-emerges, he’s pleased to find his cock almost as hard and unyielding as before.

Coming back without making a sound as is his nature, the king catches Meludir combing through his hair. It’s still tangled and he uses his fingers which is frustratingly ineffective. In that moment, something in him shifts. He suddenly sees him as an adult child, utterly lacking in manners, yet very, very candid. Thranduil barely suppresses a laugh.

The sound spooks Meludir.

“Oh.” It’s good he doesn’t move, at least he manages some form of obedience. Thranduil, naked and wet, saunters through the room and extracts a set of brushes from a drawer. Sits on the bed and inspects them carefully.

“Come here, Meludir.”

“Y-yes your majesty!” He raises smoothly, fluidly and sits on the edge of the bed. He’s cold. His skin brekes in goose bumps and Thranduil wants to laugh at how preposterous everything looks, Meludir as far away as possible from him, head lowered, hands fidgeting, the very image of nervousness.

“Oh, for Eru’s sake, boy. Come here, I’ll see about your hair!” Meludir approaches, gulping hard, eyes illuminated by some mischievous hope. He knows his body’s hot against the youth’s back and notices immedeitely the improvement of his mood.  “I am not holding you here against your will. You know that, Meludir.” He nods his head. It just adds to Thranduil’s mounting frustration. Here he is, with a neglected erection, standing in his very bed, doing nothing, just sorting through combs and hairbrushes and hair oils.

“And what happened to your cheek? To your mindless bravery, hm? Won’t you be calling me your Adar from now on?” this sure raises a reaction in him because he pushes back from his kneeling position directly into Thranduil’s crotch. "It sure seemed an interesting game before. Don't you want to play?" Thranduil waits. The answer doesn’t come.

“Very well, Meludir," he says and there’s an expectant smirk on his face. Grabbing the Silvan’s mahogany hair not too gently, he proceeds combing through it in long strokes. Meludir starts slowly parting his thighs, regulating his position so that his ass cheeks cover Thranduil’s erection. With delicate movements, propped on his hands, he rises and falls, titillating him further. So… the little tease likes playing games, after all.

Exposing a delicious patch of creamy skin, Thranduil latches his mouth ravenously on it. He bites, he licks, he sucks and lets him know that he is there, against him, overwhelmingly aroused but in control. With a hand he holds Meludir across the chest and with the other, he brushes carelessly at the hair. It’s more of a caress than anything but it produces great pleasure in his Silvan who starts letting go of himself and mewls and moans and grips his cock hard with his muscles. Valar, he’s perfect.

“Feel that, my sweet boy, feel how I strain against you.” He whispers hotly in his ear, knowing it melts him but his sweet boy only nods, though vigorously. “I want to hear you, my boy. I want to know straight from your mouth how this makes you feel.” His hand travels down on Meludir’s body, reaching the reddish brown curls between his legs and he scratches there, insistently. “Tell me, my sweet, say it for me, let go of the fear, I want to hear your voice.”

A deep, low, moan. “Ada, feels good.” His cheeks must be burning. Even so, he continues to talk to him in a shivering whisper, his lips touching his pointed ear, sometimes nipping at it. “Nngh, Ada, it feels like burning, like drowning, your touch.” Of course, it feels like burning, Thranduil smiles wickedly and with a thrust, settles himself against those thighs and he’s pleased to find that his Silvan has the presence of mind to squeeze him in between. “Your cock, it’s wet between my legs, I thought… I thought you’ll…”

“What did you think, sweetling?” His cock twitches and leaks, resting under Meludir’s smaller one. He abandons the brush but gathers the hair in a ponytail and uses it to swerve Meludir on the bed on all fours. Tentatively, he pushes his hips further. He completely encompasses the smaller frame but those thighs squeeze him strongly. He gives a shove with his cock, sliding easily between the well-oiled thighs. “Hm? What did you think? You’re free to tell me, I wish to know.”

To please the king, he has to break his shame, he has to voice his thoughts and his desires.

“I… I thought you’d enter me, I’ve prepared myself for you, Adar.”

“Yes, and you thought right of it. Did your tight little boycunt twitch for me?”

There’s nothing that could be called a proper answer, just a dragged out filthy moan and Meludir grips his cock harder.

Thranduil chuckles and with a sure hand twists the ponytail until it coils around his fist. On the outsroke of his cock, he feels Meludir pushing back, his ass cheeks glistening. He moves slow, not giving in to the hurry of Meludir’s need, of his boy’s need.

He teases the dark cock and listens to Meludir's breath, hitching every time his finger dips under the foreskin and pulls. The cock twitches in his palm, alive, ready to spill. He explores further below, massaging the tight, round balls and then goes further, barely dipping into the sensitive opening.“Ai, ada, it feels so good there!”

“Where, my darling boy? Where? Tell Ada where it feels better?” Meludir twists his head trying in vain to release himself from the grip, reluctant to speak out. His scalp must hurt already, so he relents, sliding the arm under Meludir's chest, tweaking the nipples in passing. His hips move slowly, he’s all straining muscle and tendons, as tight as a bow ready to shoot, his body supported solely on his knees and the occasional push between Meludir’s thighs. Thranduil’s ready to grab their cocks in one hand but he wants to hear him so he teasingly pushes again, an upstroke that catches in that well-oiled hole.

“Ai! There, adar! There!”

He will make Meludir say it, even if it takes him all night to tease without the promise of release. “I told you, my sweet, speak up!” His voice is breathless but Thranduil knows control, he breathes and exhales control. In the end, Meludir cedes. “My boycunt, adar. My cock. My neck, my ear…” And Thranduil starts placing small, wet kisses all over the Silvan’s nape, he bites at the protruding vertebra there and inhales the fragrance of his hair. “Everywhere, everywhere feels good!” This admission pleases the king greatly.

At last, he starts stroking their cocks together and Thranduil feels like shouting with effort as Meludir gets bolder and starts pushing back, almost sitting in his lap. It eases his hard muscles a little and then Meludir starts rubbing. There he is, then, right in his lap, cushioned by Thranduil’s hardness. Thranduil wants to laugh. It is progress on the Silvan’s part.

“Shouldn’t you be all over me already, pleasuring me in any way you can?” He taunts his little Silvan again. “You promised me so much, that you’ll enjoy yourself, you were so ready to admit that you held the key to everything and now…” he stretches his legs, pulls him properly on top of him, releasing their cocks and cups Meludir’s face. He wants to see his eyes. “… and now… you’re silent, timid, lacking confidence... Hm? Where’s my brave boy?”

He turns him around, helping Meludir’s trembling legs to mount him again. “Hm? Where’s my boy?” A kiss on the nose. Meludir’s cheeks are on fire, his lips dry, nipples hard, patches of redness all over his stomach where he was scratched and grabbed. Their cocks rub together and Meludir’s already purplish, wanting release. “Why didn’t you come? You’re such a good boy to wait for your Adar, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I’m a good boy.” He’s whispering. Thranduil’s heart seizes, that’s how perfect his boy is, shy eyes, downcast still, those thick dark eyelashes obscuring overblown pupils. “Look here!” he tips his chin and Valar… He’s perfect! A rosy tongue wets dry lips. “Yes, I’m good.” Meludir looks straight into his eyes. He knows it, he’s that good. Hazel-green meets icy-blue and he’s got freckles. Freckles, spread like golden dust across creamy skin. Thranduil places butterfly kisses all over them, praising him and making encouraging noises just to hear him mewl and voice exactly how he feels. His cock, his nipples, his balls, his lips, even his hands, as he finally captures Thranduil’s silky locks and threads his fingers through them. He’s expressing pleasure directly, now his mouth occupied full of his Ada's praises and licks greedily wherever the motions pull him. Everything’s good, to different degrees. Thranduil finds out that trapping and pressing their cocks together makes his sweet Silvan  hyperventilate as if in agony, his words broken, a relentless stream of  “Ada, ada, ada...”, while after snaking a hand behind him, to support his lower back and then lower, dipping into his twitchy little hole, fills Meludir with tremors and little screams. “So good, so good, please, Adar!”

And then it’s there.”Ada, I’m coming.” All it took was a finger buried and curled deeply into his little boycunt, stroking with constant, precise movements, and another brushing lightly on the slit of his cock, making it weep and strain. Meludir clings to him and rests his head trustingly as his slender body rocks with the power of the orgasm, his lips latching on Thranduil’s chest, a sloppy expression of his unbearable release.

As the rocking slows, Thranduil pushes another finger into his pliant body. Meludir receives him without complaint.

“You’re a good boy, Meludir” His voice is soft and intimate, surprising to his own ears. He searches for the unseeing hazel eyes and kisses Meludir on the forehead. “Look, you made a mess.” In response, the cheeky elf pushes into the intrusive fingers and contracts his muscles as if milking them. “Oh, but you’re also very naughty!” Slowly, he pushes another, filling and stretching Meludir’s rim. " I happen to also like that."

“I am good.” Meludir chides.

“Yes, very good and very brave.” Thranduil is satisfied. “You’re perfect.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now tell me what you think! No, seriously, do that. Be as explicit as you want, I appreciate honesty and suggestions. Request an audience with [the king](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/f7/e4/37/f7e43701d8a5285b3f66b1ea2ee9044e.gif). Imagine how pleased he will be to hear you out!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thranduil finds himself changing in the light of his new encounters with Meludir. It appears that others have noticed it as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's official!There, you can find it among my tags! [Thrandolas.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/603f998b4318f788997838f125ca9aee/tumblr_mff5j9Xjl71r03eggo5_500.gif) This is for the talented catharrini!  
> And forgive me for being sooo laaaate!!! I had to think things through... and I had qualms about the future of this fic.[You know...](http://24.media.tumblr.com/dcc332a415ccb49179a919353816f821/tumblr_mi7d2qcLkM1qgk4c7o1_500.gif)  
> -  
> Enjoy, darlings!

She came back. Thranduil saw her eerie shadow fragmenting in a dim hallway. She wandered only through obscure passages and left behind just a vague scent of nascent leaves. He didn't try and stop her. Some days he could feel her slink through the very halls. Tauriel was good at hiding but the king wished she weren't. 

Legolas was very much aware of her presence but hid such knowledge from his father. That was... interesting. In the past, despite the apparent normalcy of their interaction, Legolas had been reluctant to approach him. Time told no lies and Legolas would often remind Thranduil that the only thing that tied them was the memory of _her_ , lost forever in the coldness of Angmar. And their time as a family had been too short to even feel real. He knew Thranduil as a king, as a ruler of Mirkwood, as a commander of armies.

 Once, Legolas used to know him as a father. An underlying sense of awkwardness, if not blatant mistrust used to taint their bond. It took the courage of a lifetime, an elven one at that, to break the ice surrounding his heart, fragile as it had been left after the unfortunate disappearance of his beloved wife. The pain of it almost made him give up but how could he, when Legolas was the most important thing in his life? The battle of the five armies reminded him of that. When did he forget? When did he start _confusing_ Legolas with… Mirkwood? They have never been one and the same.

 

 

"If you wish to see her, you should visit the grain vault."

Legolas grew silent. He gulped and nodded. There was no need to question Thranduil's knowledge of it. His son looked at him, finally looked at him since his departure for Imladris. A gentle blue met his eyes, now filled with unsaid words and strong emotions.

"Thank you," he said and his voice cracked a little.Thranduil was sure that his son headed right there. 

He was left alone on his throne, watching over his subjects from above. He drank, glass after glass, and reviewed his son's annotated maps of the forest and the mountains.The sun may have been up into the sky but inside the caves, the light was filtered, dimmed and redirected. A stranger to Mirkwood and its ways could never tell the difference between day and night. Inside, time was static. Out of the caves, people died, the forest grew darker and darker. Elves were eternal.

 

 

Time has passed since his night with Meludir. In Mirkwood, as in any place threatened by the increasing orc activity, nights of peace and sensuality were considered a luxury. Even Thranduil, as the king, could not indulge as he wanted in the charms of his lover. That night he fulfilled his promise well. He did more than that, in fact. Meludir became malleable in his hands, he became open and free. Writhing on the bed with his king’s fingers inside of him, taking a cock in sweet, temperate strides, riding his king’s hardness until completion.

The Silvan voiced his orgasm more than once. It was a different thing with Thranduil, always waiting, always controlled, tense, ready to burst, until he let go. He always kept his word. He filled Meludir well that night, tired him out until all that he could scream was “ _Adar_!”.  He relaxed immediately upon his own orgasm. The dam had been broken. Meludir lay atop him and stretched like a cat. His seed poured warm out of Meludir who tried muffling his embarrassed laughter into his chest. Thranduil’s hands cradled him, two fingers found his lover’s well-used little hole and grinned. He’d taken more, indeed.

 He wished he could feel even an ounce of tiredness. He felt light, luminous. And that light intensified when he realised lying together in bed that they really fit together, Meludir’s head resting on his chest, near to his furiously beating heart.

“That was… good.”

Thranduil laughed.

“Is that all you can say about it? Good?”

“You lasted for so long! I would have come at the first touch...”

“And you did.”  

Meludir then laughed, his crystalline voice filling the once quiet chambers. No one should fear anything, especially Meludir.

“It is age. I am an old, old elf.” Thranduil continued, languidly, playing along.

“Then I say we should have another go, later, a _dar_ , show me what the turn of two ages can do to an elf.”

They laughed together.

 “You’re up to no good. You have no idea what you just asked for, _ion_!”

It was probably then when it started. Things started happening, time seemed to go faster.

 

 

Meludir should arrive at any time to report on his assignment with the king's guards. They haven't been separated by urgency, although, that day, Meludir woke in the king's arms with a jerk, kissed him goodbye and left his bed in a tremendous hurry. Thranduil could not stop him because it meant denying Mirkwood the safety the guards provided, so he let him go. Amazed, he stared at his bed as it grew colder. Suddenly, it seemed too large for one person and dismayed, he abandoned his comfort to the breaking dawn and started on his duties.

It had been one of those nights when emotional exhaustion won the battle and Thranduil just succumbed to Meludir's insistent affections. He wasn't sure whether he missed him or whether the pressing feeling in the back of his neck had other cause. It must have been a mix of both, for all day long, his thoughts kept drifting to his insouciant lover, then to their lovemaking, then to matters of Mirkwood, then to Legolas. Ideas of Mirkwood. Tauriel. Orcs. Letters from Dale. Then back to his Silvan lover.

Observing from his throne, the king grew restless as other news refused to come.  

But Meludir returned at dusk with the patrol. His kisses were demanding, his pulse accelerated."My king, must I wait for the seclusion of your chambers? Don't punish me so!"

"My king, must I wait for the seclusion of your chambers? Don't punish me so!"

  
Mad. He was mad with desire. The bulge in his breeches pressed hard into Thranduil's thigh. He touched his face and Meludir moaned, mouth slack, fingers clinging.

"You gave me sweet release last night, my king. Am I not allowed to do the same for you?"

  
Of course, they never had enough time. And they were elves, they had eternity. The approaching of the dawn meant for Meludir to return to his duties. 

  
He pulled the Silvan into him. "I should have you here on my throne but who will resist millennia of gossip, my sweet?"  
He kisses Meludir deeply, meaningfully. "Wait for my use, Meludir."  
"Aye, _Adar_ ," the Silvan moans and obediently, makes haste towards his king’s suite.

 

 

  
Indeed, he waited for his king, shivering naked on his bed, spread wide like a peace offering. Thranduil took his time exercising admiration. With enough incentive, he disrobed quickly, smoothly. From the drawers of his nightstand, he extracted the leather bounds. 

Meludir looked at him with anticipation. He knew what was coming. All he could think of all day long was how good it would feel if his king's cock were to replace the emptiness and then the plug inside of him. Grinning, he lifted his legs showing his commitment to his task.  
"Good boy, Meludir." Thranduil praised him. "Now, now.  _Adar_ is going to give you what you need. My sweet boy wants to be filled up, I see." He tugs teasingly on the plug's head. White marble.

"When did you put this inside of you?" He pulls it halfway, fascinated at the way Meludir's body contorts and starts shivering. It's not a thick thing but it made Meludir's boycunt accommodatingly loose.   
"Tell me, what does my sweet boy want from me, hm?"

  
"I want my Ada's cock inside of me, please, please, please!" His voice catches on a wonderful crescendo as Thranduil's fingers skate the stretched rim of his greedy boycunt. Instead of the thick veiny cock of his _Adar_ , Meludir's got another finger entering him besides the stone plug.

  
He cries. It's so full. So he tells his _Ada_ and he is so pleased with the progress, his finger crooks and prods. It's a dragged out delicious torture when his _Ada_ finds his prostate and attacks it with precision. His cock wants to shoot untouched but his _Adar_ 's other hand clenches around him. "Not yet, sweet Meludir. _Ada_ is going to give everything to you, just as he promised last night."

Between tying the leather to a wrist to the bedpost and securing the other, the past few days finally register into his mind. It’s a sinking, yet joyous feeling. He must be mad. Mad to think this isn’t madness. Meludir likes this game and so does Thranduil but at some point in their frustrated kisses and fervent touches,  Meludir’s face begins changing into that of Legolas.

“ _Adar, Adar… Adar_!”

However, it’s been a while since his arousal peaked like this. With Meludir’s arms restrained, he’s free to look at his debauched guard. Meludir shudders and opens his hazel eyes. “I want you, _Adar_.” He’s such a dangerous, conniving elf. Since their first night, this show of affection transformed him completely. He has freed himself from complications; perhaps in his mind, Meludir can have his _Adar_ and fuck him as well.

“Adar, don’t stop now,” he says while his thighs part obscenely wide. Excited and restrained, with auburn hair splayed messily on the pillows, and chest heaving as if he ran for his life, Meludir is splendid.

He doesn’t forget to tell him that, “You’re beautiful,” and Meludir purrs with pleasure at the praise. Fastidiously, he gets himself into position and begins tantalising his sweet boy again with nips and kisses on his tense thighs. It works. From being loud and vocal, Meludir is reduced to a silent, patient lover. He looks up and sees his Silvan, focused entirely on the pleasure he brings, biting his lower lip as Thranduil toys with the plug, stretching him further, preparing him for his cock.

He comes gradually down from that high. Empty all of a sudden, hips raised by Thranduil’s knees, completely exposed. The look of utter trust when Thranduil enters him is shattering. Meludir wants him to know that.

“ _Ada_ , just fuck me, please.”

Thranduil obliges. He penetrates Meludir with long, shuddery strokes, he overwhelms him with his focused icy gaze, he supports his legs with his strong hands. Meludir grasps the leather cords which keep him a prisoner to this bed.

Only later it dawns on Thranduil that they’re both insanely loud.

Thranduil allowed it at first. The second time thought it but a silly game. Later in their continued passion, it came to him that he hadn’t just been playing along.

“ _Adar_ , yes, there, right there! So good…”

It became part of him, not just a ludicrous game. It became real. So he uttered it.

“Yes, _ion_ , you feel amazing.”

These moments of pleasure blended into one. They consolidated his long lost passion for carnal reciprocity and alleviated the hunger of his soul. They kissed and fucked with no restrictions, with no afterthoughts. This became their eternal spring. Daring, always pushing the limits of convenience and practicality, Thranduil turned less aware of the present moment and allowed himself to feel eternity again. It was a game that didn’t feel like any other, intimate or not.

Only when it stopped being one.

 

 

He drank too much on that day. In fact, all he did was drink and piss and sometimes shout orders from above. Tauriel made her official appearance no more than a day before. She cut her long beautiful hair and wore it like a page of Númenor would, just over her shoulders. Thranduil had a fit just seeing it. 

She continued giving him defiant looks but kept silent for the rest of their meeting. Legolas talked in her stead. She seemed comfortable enough with that. He didn’t plead for her. She wasn't a helpless thing. Legolas never pleaded, it was not his nature but he spoke reasonably and insisted that Tauriel was indispensable to their military force. 

And not only.

 

 

Legolas didn’t look smitten now that she was back and had her heart mending. He didn’t look any different from before. In fact, he looked challengingly into Thranduil’s eyes, as if…

Meludir, freshly relieved of his guard duties, came bearing official scrolls. He still smelled of the forest, of battle and spiders. His face was flush, glistening.

 _As if…_ Thranduil couldn’t read that message in his son’s eyes.

Legolas’ eyes were dark and hard.

“I’ve heard you’re inclined to express more leniency these days, _Adar_ ,” Legolas spoke, his penetrating gaze leaving Thranduil. 

"When did you hear such a thing?" It was almost preposterous. What did he imply?

“It’s what I’ve heard... lately.” Legolas paused with meaning. “A lot, in fact… _Ada_.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you find yourself confused... here are some translations:  
> Adar- father; Ada- daddy; Ion- son.  
> -  
> So, I will try and stick with weekly updates. Expect a few more chapters to this fic until it becomes a complete work of fanfiction. yay!
> 
> -  
> Boring author note, [beware](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8vkdqOssI1qhd14co1_250.gif)!  
> First of all, I want to tell you a few things. I am glad to be able to write here. Or anywhere publicly. Transformative works and the idea of fanfiction are one of the many manifestations of freedom of speech or expression. I do not want you to forget that I am not making any money out of this. I do not intend to be disrespectful towards anyone or anything. This is a work of fiction, this is fanfiction.  
> Fiction is not reality. Fiction can be many things. Fiction can be as surreal and implausible as your imagination allows. This form of information dissemination, even though it shocks, offends or greatly disturbs us should be treated as maturely as possible because it has a right to exist. Here we are, presented with context and choices. Or this is what my European education taught me. I do believe in that. I don't think anyone needs a boring discourse on the harm principle.  
> Secondly, there is a difference between saying something and doing said thing. Remember that, always. We all have the right to use our imagination. We also choose whether to materialise it or not. Personally, I choose to write. I need it. I am trying. Writing and reading fanfiction saved my life in many ways. Maybe it saves others as well. I think that when one chooses to write, one is responsible for every word and every letter.  
> I choose to present MY view on things. This is my perspective, this is my lesson. This is my design.   
> It can transform you, for better or worse. Take it or leave it. I tag things and I try to do it correctly. I am still thinking on my feet. I have no writing schedule and this makes things highly unpredictable. Even for me! :))  
> Thirdly- and I promise I am done- I choose to moderate comments on my work.  
> Wow! H.Poem is talking about freedom of speech and all that jazz while all this time chooses to censor said freedom of expression/ speech. Wow! How hypocritical!  
> True dat.  
> I've recently come across a conundrum, you see. One of my favourite LOTR writers on ao3 said they will abandon this site and remove all their works from it because of trolling and mostly because the site failed to take appropriate action. It made me quite sad. How would I react faced to that?  
> That's serious food for thought, darlings!  
> So... back to comment moderation...  
> Not feeding the troll is not an easy thing to do. Sometimes, it is the most difficult thing! It's like an itch that shouts at you and demands to be scratched. It's terrible drama always in search for an audience. I don't think that anyone needs more drama into their life. You see, I am a phlegmatic. IMO, drama equals emotional stress and anxiety. Who needs that?  
> ...and if someone feels like turning waves into tsunamis, psychologytoday has great advice: use creative [outlets](https://i.makeagif.com/media/11-16-2015/5TC636.gif) to lessen your baseline stress level. Weeeee!  
> I am not shutting anyone down, just moderating... should the *(un)fortunate opportunity* present itself.  
> I accept feedback and concrit. I am curious about your opinions. I give feedback in return.  
> And that being said, I hope you all had a wonderful time!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is entirely my fault. This whole chapter is just a rapid exchange of lines.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thank Tauriel for this chapter. Without her, nothing would be possible. The Hobbit would have been a confusing movie marathon filled with [dudes fighting and spitting insults at each other](http://25.media.tumblr.com/fb5e8e7330c3ef8e9c6a81be75dc446e/tumblr_my4bu4qEIt1r54xs6o4_250.gif). In Quenya or black speech. Which I don't understand.  
> -  
> Enjoy!

More wine. It’s not like him to ruminate over these new developments. He shouldn’t be surprised, though. Legolas isn’t stupid. They all know, undoubtedly. They’re elves, after all. In fact, Thranduil is proud of them for managing to keep silent about it, for letting him have his dream.

She sits in the shadow, watching him. Thranduil feels her eyes burning, assessing.

“What?” Puts the glass down, threatening to break it. “Will you come out of those shadows, Tauriel or are you planning on watching over me all night?” His words have no bite in them. He turns and looks at her tiredly. This is his suite and she has no problem intruding on him, apparently.

At last, she comes out. The shorter hair suits her. She let it loose and it covers her ears. Her big, pointy Silvan ears. He smirks. Tauriel’s ears were the largest he’s seen so far. And he lived a long, long time. “You started looking like yourself again, forest girl.”

“It’s been a very long time since I’ve been a girl,” she retorts. “If you fail to see that after millennia, you’re unfit to rule these people!”

He looks mockingly, reprovingly at her.

“Fine, not girl. Woman, then.” He cedes.

“Indeed. Somehow, you figured it out.”

“You’re still a girl to me, Tauriel. A nosy, little _elleth_ that stole honey from the rations and played pranks. You put honey in my boots. Even after millennia, I cannot forget that.” He preoccupies himself with the glasses and the pitcher.

Tauriel says nothing. In fact, she’s exceedingly calm as she paces the vast room.

“And you said I was too young,” it’s almost a huff but registers like a simple observation.

Thranduil knows what he’s talking about.

“He’s not young, Tauriel. He’s not a child.”

“But you tend to think so, calling him your boy in bed! Son! Child!”

Thranduil doesn’t freeze at these words. He doesn’t crawl upon himself. He does not lash like a spiteful creature. He thinks he lost that ability ages ago. Instead, he moves to sit in his favourite chair and crosses his legs. Elegance, poise, endurance. No grimace crosses his face no acknowledgement. Tauriel watches him, almost admiringly. He's always been so hard to read.

“Pour yourself some wine, Tauriel.”

There are tapestries in this room. Old, yet vivid tapestries. They depict the forest as it should be without the gangrene that is Dol Guldur. There’s emotion on her face but she’s turned her back on him so Thranduil cannot see it. Her muscles tremble. Inside, she’s thinking of the reason she cannot let this go.

“If you want me so much to drink your wine, why don’t you pour it for me and hand it to me?!”

Because it’s unfair.

She’s not angry. She is in her own right to respond to this. “Frozen heart!” She spat.

“You’ve said that before, Tauriel.”

“How could you do that? Have you any idea how Legolas, your son feels about that? Have you any idea how he found about it?”

“Is that a king’s duty, Tauriel?”

“You are his father.” It should suffice as an argument and Thranduil stopped a long time ago defending himself, especially after too many glasses.

“Then am I not allowed to take lovers, Tauriel? You have a tendency to forget that it is my bed! Mine! My cock, my touch, my mouth, on his cock, his mouth and his ass!”

She looks away. She does not want to but she does.

“It’s dark red with wormwood leaves. Bitter. Heady. You should have some.”

Figures why he now sits lax in his chair, a glazed sedate look in his crystal cold eyes. She reaches the table, selects a glass and pours a generous amount.

“You also made Legolas write that poem for me.” He plays with his drink, swirling the liquid. “You knew it would make me happy. You practically dictated it to him word for word. My son would never say that I was kind and fair and beautiful.”

He looks at her. She takes a sip. It’s bitter. “Are you surprised?” Thranduil seems all of a sudden deeply amused about the whole thing. “I wish that my son would remember calling me those things, once. He may not… because he didn’t think them. But I remember everything.” Thranduil’s eyes look over, lost for a moment or two then his pupils contract slightly, piercingly at a spot behind the curtains of his sleeping chamber.

It takes a while before she drinks the whole glass postponing her answer and his attention shifts back to the present.

“I would have expected nothing less, your majesty. Were you surprised to find out that we… know?”

“I never gave it much thought, I must confess.” He appeared as if falling into reverie. For a short while, he closed his eyes. His breath is but a murmur. “Tauriel…” he almost whispered, “how would you like to be my counsellor?”

Having imbibed the heady concoction, Tauriel feels slightly warm, a bit out of focus. “You drink this often?”

He smirks at her.

“Only when I want to convince you to take council with me on matters concerning… Mirkwood.” He says with finality. He’s a beast, and when he seems to be slumbering or weak or injured, especially when he’s all these things combined, Thranduil strikes the deadliest.

“And so you drink.” She says and tries to make her tone harsher. She can’t. “You want _me_ , a lowly Silvan, to advise _you_ , on what’s better for our realm?”

“Mirkwood.” He corrects her. “Remember, this is Mirkwood, corrupted and darkened. And I am the king. If you consider yourself a lowly Silvan, why are you here, wasting my time and drinking my wine?”

There are unshed tears in Tauriel's eyes. She feels and she does not understand, not yet. Every emotion is an open wound but time will mend it, Thranduil's certain of that.

She turns to leave, hurt. 

"You can be wise beyond your years. You just don't see it yet."

Of course, he remembers. He remembers everything they said or did over these long and many years. It takes but to close his eyes and the memory is there, untainted. His wife, the queen, his son, covered in blood. Her blood. Their blood. Tauriel, born later to a grieving elleth. His first captain died, crushed by the Nazgul's mace. Her mother died upon her birth. A broken heart, an ashen face.

Tauriel and Legolas growing up like siblings. Tauriel reaching her womanhood, becoming distant. Legolas chasing after her. Tauriel chasing after a sad and aching thing. It couldn’t have been possible. He wouldn’t have allowed it. Not her, not when she said she loved him. He couldn’t. There was no way. And there will never be. That was not love. And it will never be. Tauriel has still to master this absolute and the impossibility of it. She only has begun.

He pours himself another and downs it almost in a hurry, then plops in his chair nonchalantly.

“You can come out now, Legolas, _ion nin_.”

Legolas emerges gravely, from behind the heavy velvet curtain. He is focused, prepared as if he’d been thinking deeply about something.

“I do remember, my father, my king.” His voice is even, like a perfectly sharpened blade. “You are in the wrong, again.” He steps casually to the table and picks a clean crystal glass for himself. He’s tall and handsome in his long, trim tunic. Nothing ever seems out of place on Legolas.

Thranduil is silently admiring him. His son is the embodiment of elven perfection here on Arda.

“Ah…” The spiced wine does not agree with Legolas’ tastes. He expected that. “How did she manage to down a glass of this murk? Tastes foul!” Thranduil laughs liberally when he could simply smirk with superiority and raise his eyebrows challengingly.

“As I was saying, father, you were wrong before.” He pauses and faces him completely, overcrowding his space. Their boots touch. Legolas pushes further.

“You may not seem, but in your heart of hearts you are kind. How could you not be, when you exercise your mercy on me. I don’t have to beg too much… _Adar_.” His fingers grasp the arms of the chair, his breath is sour, Thranduil can smell the wine on him.

“Fair… you could be,” he gets closer, predatorily. “If you weren't usually compelled by resentment and greed.”  Legolas takes his time to appraise his prey. Soon… Soon it will be his. “Let others debate your fairness… I’d say… They’re quite satisfied with what you are willing to offer.”

“But you’re beautiful, _Adar_. That’s undeniable.”

Their faces are so close they could exchange air. Thranduil is pushed into the plush backrest of the chair. His eyes are ice, they are crystal, both solemn and challenging. He's warm, all of a sudden. Legolas, his son, became a dangerous, feral creature. His purpose is to steal his _Adar’s_ breath, to get that close, to taste the beauty of it.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading and showing your support! It's good for my writer's brain.  
> I guess it will happen.[No, I'm sure of it.](http://i74.beon.ru/32/35/2053532/15/110631315/tumblr_myxokveCXl1t0qomjo3_500.gif)
> 
> I realized I shouldn't explain this to you.. but oh well...  
> If you haven't caught on the meaning of the kind, fair and beautiful thing, you should know that Legolas is using his secretly gathered *intel* to rile his Ada from his impassivity.  
> My Thranduil is slowly thinking of the future and apparently, makes tiny steps to compensate for his outdated [isolationist policy ](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/1a/d9/b6/1ad9b6e15c3fc5bb8ee17cabe39e0ff1.jpg) so that he would become a reasonably cooperating force in the destruction of the bling ring. In my headcanon, Thrandy and Tauriel could become BFFs before the end of the 4th age.  
> -I'm off to sleep now, guys.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Legolas knows exactly what he wants. He's made up his mind. Thranduil doesn't deny him but doesn't encourage him either. His son doesn't leave until he gets at least a consolation prize.  
> -  
> masturbation+ come eating  
> -  
> Warning! parent/child incest!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All I hope is this makes sense. It's definitely a first step in the thrandolas direction, as I've promised to catharrini.  
> Enjoy!

It never crossed his mind and now he is appalled by the contradictory course of his thoughts. Always so sure of himself, Thranduil doesn’t take well to constants in his life suddenly going berserk. He ponders these things because simply letting them go means wanting to forget. Thranduil does not want to forget, as much as he needs it, sometimes.

Slow and easy, he had been entrapped by Legolas’  body. His son may not have inherited the tall and imposing figure of the Sindar but there was a feral, almost playful side to his nature. When he felt Legolas’ touch and his fervid breath on his neck, Thranduil remained petrified in his chair. He looked at the ceiling, trembling for a while with uncertain shadows.

His fingers, inert in face of danger, were persistently feeling up the knots in the wood of the armrest.  He was completely aware of the chafing of his heavily embroidered tunic, silver thread and rubies clawing into his skin. He was hot all over, he could almost admit he was unwell. This was what the deer felt while stalked, the hyperawareness of the impending death.

Legolas was making a kill and Thranduil, all this time could not find a reason for which to stop him. Had he grown complacent in his old age? His vision curbed and wrought by old beliefs, enslaved to his own nature. He felt too tired to face Legolas with opposition, too overcome by the physicality of it. It was worse that Legolas continued on this tour with unabashed precision like he was following a trail. He read him like a map.

A touch to his chest was slowly registering in Thranduil’s mind.  Legolas was disrobing him slowly. Thranduil felt the skin of his calloused fingers touching his collarbone. The fingers, free of rings and other adornments went on a downward route, pushing at the clasps, tearing at the silks, almost ruining his garment. And Thranduil let it happen because the novelty of it created a nebula of sensation in him that settled pleasantly into his wine-addled mind. 

His body felt heavy on Thranduil. Pure muscle, tense like a bow. However, only Thranduil knew that unlike the novices, the bow was part of Legolas’ body, an extension of his arm, always perfectly controlled. The passing of a yen marks an elf perfectly capable of understanding the world he’s part of. For an elf, learning and gathering knowledge is never a finite process.

By the end of the first yen, every elf is capable of mastering their mind and their body. Ten or twenty yen become the mastery of life as an elf. An age marks the elevation of these virtues. However, there is always a possibility for the virtues to become vices and Thranduil knows it very well. He’s experienced this deranged route too many a time. Legolas attacks his necks with biting kisses. He never expected less from his son.

His hands are sure on Thranduil’s shoulders, and his thighs squeeze him in a sitting position. He’s not aroused, just curious, and when Legolas secures him to cooperation or at least a silent acceptance, Thranduil feels those tense muscles suddenly become comfortable planes, just warmth and power.

Legolas uses his shoulder as a pillow, his chest as a bed, his thighs as a seat. He exhales in the crook of Thranduil’s neck, making him shiver. It’s the breath of an impatient buck, cold on the wetness of his skin. Then, Legolas transforms into a lynx, his tongue worrying the skin, imprinting his scent on Thranduil. He’s content, Thranduil feels it and the stretching silence finally has the effect of waking him from the stupor.

He tenses. His muscles prickle at the feel of Legolas.

Legolas is very aroused and very much alert, Thranduil notices. No wine would render him like this. He still has difficulty with gathering the strength to pull himself up and away from his son’s arms which now seem more of a prison. His fingers are tingly, his ears overwhelmed by Legolas’ energetic breath, sweet and hot over his skin.

At last, his arms find the strength. Thranduil awakens. Not too gently, he forces Legolas away from him and he keeps him at arms’ length.

“Legolas, I am tired.” It is the truth but it’s also a world away from it. How could he say that this is more than inappropriate between them? He’s made up his mind. He will not acknowledge that. It was all a dream drawn out of his late night alcohol imbibed mind. Consciousness is crisp at the edges of his mind and Thranduil sorts himself out, traitorous eyes skimming over his son’s body. Perfect in every way.

He stretches his legs and they tingle also, numb from the pressure, and wonders what would push Legolas over the edge, make him scream and oppose him, make him see his error and apologise.  But Legolas doesn’t move much. The bulge between his legs being a persistent reminder. Instead, he takes his father’s seat and lounges there very much like a big cat. One by one, he unbuttons his green tunic and when he reaches his breeches, his eyes bore into Thranduil’s in defiance. His fingers don’t stop. He pulls at the ties of his pants and pushes.

Thranduil just watches, for an instant aghast at the implication. It’s the uncouth behaviour of the barracks and the shameless invitation of the brothels. He isn’t that delusional to think his son an innocent but he didn’t imagine this. Against all reason, he pours himself another drink, because Legolas shrugs off his silk shirt and his nipples pebble. Thranduil wishes he wasn’t so alert despite all the wine he’d drank.

He needs this glass, only that Legolas encroaches upon him radiating light and heat and so much raw power that Thranduil breaks into a sweat.

“I think you’ve had enough, Adar.” He steals the glass from him and puts him away and from behind, his mouth latches hungrily on his father’s neck.

He shivers at the sensation that only a lover could have awakened in him. This molten desire in his bones should never surface with his own son and he’s stricken at the very thought.

“Legolas!”

His voice is barking, strong again, despite the harrowing desperation. He turns to Legolas and searches for his eyes. “You don’t know what you’re doing. I am your father.” It’s not anger, nor frustration for letting this go that far. It’s  just a calm assertion.

And to prove it, his hand extends to Legolas, to touch and comfort. “You are my child and my blood. You are my life,” just like when he was an elfling of five, scared by the storms and the stories of spiders. But Legolas is not five, that he knows too well. It’s easy to see in the body. If he wished, his son would easily overpower him and Thranduil would allow it because being forced to mar even an inch of that perfect skin would be unbearable to him.

“Sit, Legolas,” he whispers and gently, pulls him into his arms. Chest to chest, he feels the strong muscle and the vibration of the heart. But Legolas’ hands are restless. Clinging at first, and then travelling downward. His eyes are lost, somewhere in the distance. Turning his face and cupping his cheek would be too much, so Thranduil lets him relax first before letting him go.

 Sneakily, Legolas pushes forward. With a hand, he tries to push back but touches his cock, peeking wetly from the ties of his breeches. Strong arms, trap him like vines and he’s in no position to move, has little visibility, his legs cramp… Only Legolas’ hot, shuddery breath in his ear, straining muscle, insistence. Legolas’ mouth is hot, greedy and biting on his own, prying his lips open with desperation.

Thranduil allows it because it’s Legolas. Deep in his mind, he wills it to be an innocent kiss but it’s been too long since he’d done innocent, so he opens further. If Legolas wants to hurt him, use him or shock him, then so be it. Thranduil can take this and not break.

He knows the movements of a shivering body, on the point of bursting at the seams. He feels the trails of arousal, can hear the supplicant moans hidden in the unlawful kiss. He’s merciful, he gives in. he’s tired and this is Legolas, his son, in a moment of doubt that it’s going to pass when he realises how taboo this whole thing is.  Thranduil will let him see for himself. Pushing the storm will just make it lash back, misunderstood and wounded. And then the pleas. He knows these are no requests a child voices to their parent. An age should erase that doubt but the constant moan of “Ada, Ada… Ada” softens his resolve. He lets him. He’s just curious.

 _Let him have what he wants,_ he says to himself.

“Shhh...” he tries to be comforting and Legolas glues his body to his. He’s trapped by arms and legs clinging , tensing and the fervid up and down motion of Legolas trying to get friction for his neglected erection. Thranduil can understand the need so he becomes lax in those arms.

“Shh… calm now, Legolas”

And then a strong hand finds his and Legolas directs it in between them. For a second he sees his eyes, pupils dilated, cheeks red, the tips of his ears also red, lips gloriously wet. Perfection. His hand on his son’s cock. Wet, sticky, almost. His fingers move by habit.

 “Shhh…  my sweet… you’re too tense.” And he can smile, especially when his son’s mouth is on him again, tongue aggressive and demanding. He can savour it. He can show him that if he chooses to stop, everything will be the same because Legolas is not one of his mistakes. No, Legolas is not.

“Ada!”Legolas arches and spends himself, shudders and pants and rides that wave, into Thranduil’s hair, into his ear, into his mouth.

But he cannot be his son’s mistake, so he detaches, slowly, gently, cups that face pushes it to relax, he sacrifices the lapels of his robe, cleans Legolas up and tucks him in his breeches.

“You’re tired, my sweet boy.”

He can’t look him in the eye. Thranduil doesn’t know whether it was deliberate or a mistake, a simple reaction to the touch but he’s careful to keep his distance as he fishes for Legolas’ silks and covers his back, gathering his pale hair to rest on a shoulder.

“You need rest, my son.”

Legolas huffs, still too relaxed from his orgasm but slowly gathering himself.

“Don’t treat me like a child!” Of course, the defiance and the reproach are there, laced into his adult voice but his voice is weak, sleepy, satisfied. Legolas seems happy again. His arms and legs stretch, now fed with the warmth of sexual release. His hand tugs at Thranduil’s robe, playfully. “Come, Ada…” he almost purrs.

“You’re half an age, you can’t be a child. But you are my child.”

 Legolas pretends he didn’t listen and continues his roguish ministrations, tugging on the hem of his father’s shirt.

 “I am tired and I am too old for this, Legolas.”

For some reason, Legolas’s eyes are still distant, impenetrable but he stops as if reprimanded. He’s prepared well for this, whatever it is and that unsettles Thranduil.

 “You’ve probably given this much thought but I cannot give you what you want. That is impossible for me.”

Finally, he pulls the shirt on, then his tunic and for the first time, Thranduil sees Legolas falter.

“It is not fair, Adar…” his voice trails, broken, significantly vulnerable, “What you call him! You shouldn’t!”

Of course. His games. His little sexual games… something to pass the time, and which have absolutely nothing to do with why they’re here, in this position.

“You know you’re in the wrong, Legolas. It has nothing to do with you. Age showed you that in more than one way.”

Trembling and furious and incredibly satisfied, Legolas’ eyes spark like topaz, in many colours. A violent sky, all but trapped in those eyes.

“You tell that to yourself, Adar.” Legolas is furious now, unleashed. Thranduil understands. Legolas is not used to being denied.

 “You know very well what I was doing and you’ve let it happen!” He says it as if to prove something but Thranduil is mostly guarded, doesn’t jump to defend or assent to anything.

“I tell myself many things, however, not to deceive myself. I can see where my mistakes lie and it’s not with you.”

“You have my come on your robe, Adar. That tells me enough.” Legolas bites the words out, as a last resort to hurt and Thranduil is open to it. He smiles, his fingers touching the whitish wet patch on the brocade. It’s quite a generous amount, trickling lazily, starting to crust on the rich material.

“You should take lovers, Legolas, teach them how to please you, and learn to please them in return.” He is almost certain this would make his son see reason. Surely, he doesn’t think this experiment would continue.

Legolas extends his hand again, assured, comfortable but frowning a little. Maybe such suggestions are overdue.

“I know how to please a lover.” His fingers travel Thranduil’s flank, mischievously. Up and down. Up and down, only slower and slower. It’s annoyingly pleasant and familiar. It tickles. Thranduil shudders a bit with the force of it. Legolas’ index reaches down, past the knee, and dips right into the wet spot. Thranduil watches in fascination at how his son delicately gathers the come from his robe, now ruined.

“Here, Adar, taste me.” He presents two fingers to him, congealing, sticky white seed. It’s inches from his lips. Thranduil can smell it. It’s a bold move. He can easily push it away or distance himself, leave Legolas alone and go to sleep. Yes, he could do that. And then what? Make his son apologise for a natural reaction of his overcharged body? Make him fear and then regret his own father, estrange him further?

 His eyes are ice, penetrating and unyielding but his lips open, pale and decadent. He will have it, he’s only curious and sucks them in.

He watches. Like a hawk, for every reaction. Thranduil will answer all his questions. Legolas pushes them further, like an impatient little beast, nails digging in the softness of his father's mouth.

“How is it?” Thranduil is fairly amused. He decides to humour him.

“Salty.” He savours the taste like a wine. “Tangy…  definitely not your best shot.” He exhales as if exhausted by this test.

“It’s seed, Legolas.” This is preposterous. He’s disseminating the taste of his son’s seed. That requires an end to this madness.

He almost gives up.

“Does it taste like his?” Never in his life has Legolas sounded more like a nosy child. Thranduil swallows, his mind registering the whole flavour, classifying it into a distinct new area of discoveries for that night.

“Why don’t you find out for yourself, my son?” It’s an unfounded jealousy Legolas bears and Meludir is a sweet, terribly delicious and sensitive lover. After all, it was the Silvan’s infatuation that brought them here together.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ada- (Sindarin) dad/ daddy.  
> Adar- father, more formal Sindarin version.  
> 1 yen=144 years.  
> In this fic I go with Legolas being born after the rise of the Witchking of Angmar, circa 1300 TA.  
> The events in the fic take place a few years after Bilbo's journey, well past 2942 TA.  
> -
> 
> I thank you all for your support! I wish I could write faster. :)  
> Leave a note and let me know your opinions!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I already know this will transform into a threesome. Oh well...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have recently started experimenting with different writing software, such as WriteMonkey and I have to say... I don't procrastinate as much as I used to!  
> I've tried to keep things interesting between Thranduil and Tauriel in this one. Thranduil reads dirty prose to her...[yes](http://68.media.tumblr.com/3aed27c136e267a9c8e22f74fcbfd89c/tumblr_mzxr1wVVCe1qiy0obo1_500.gif). And no, they will never pair up... maybe as gossip partners, sometimes in the 4th age...  
> I've introduced some things about the Avari (such as drunk orgies), I have also made some lewd implications about Finrod, Curufin and Celegorm and I have mentioned Thranduil's liaison with one of Fëanor's sons, Maglor (the one presumably still alive). I have absolutely no excuse for implying incestuous relations between Feanor and his sons. [I know...](https://media.giphy.com/media/2GYCksZaGDZni/giphy.gif)  
> I have also crowned Oromë the Vala as master of debauched ceremonies. His Sindarised name is Awar, and he's also known as the Horn-blower.  
> This chapter is mainly Thranduil/ Meludir... just waiting impatiently for their prince to come (pun intended).

Up from his throne, Thranduil observes his councilors haggling and arguing over the price of grain. Seeing as their trade agreements need renewal and his Silvans haven’t reached a consensus on these things, he imagines they will continue well into the night. They won’t stop until the price is right.

At his side, Tauriel, dressed all in black, red hair resting softly in a fishtail, peruses the ledgers on economy and coin. She can barely hide a yawn of boredom and sneezes particularly loud when she unrolls a dusty scroll.

“You exile me, then you bid me come back and now you torture me with these… things…”

He takes a swig of wine. It’s a heavy velvety one, as old as time and ambles it in his mouth, almost feeling on his skin the joyous light that made the grapes swell with sweetness.  
“I didn’t call you back.” He does not hide it from her and doesn’t treat her with any privilege. He has nothing to spare. “My son brought you out of your two-year mourning and seeing as you had nothing better to do than brood in dark corners, you should be appreciative.”

The burning look she throws his way, the sour expression on her face, the almost sniveling sound that escapes her, have the effect f entertaining him temporarily. After all, it’s proof of her ability to feel, and thus, love again. This time, he hopes it won’t be another unfortunate, doomed choice plagued by an early death or worse, a shorter lifespan than eternity. He has to treat this penchant for self-inflicted wounds in her like a healer treats a fungus on plants corrupted by Sauron.

He’ll teach her through experience. He'll teach her through exposure. She will hate it and this makes him smile as he swallows his drink and etches on his face a gleefully arrogant expression. “You have a feast right before your eyes, my dear,” he says, gesturing at the men below who are still caught in their bargaining. “Learn to embrace it. You have many years to get used to it.” And then, with an underlying satisfaction, he adds “They save coin for the crown, which pleases me greatly. You should learn these things.”

  
She frowns but doesn’t abandon her work. “I doubt I will ever…”  
_'I doubt I will ever please you'_ , but she doesn't voice it. He knows she thinks it and it suffices.  
“Suit yourself, Tauriel. Eternity is a long time.” And a boring one, sometimes, but he refrains from voicing that. Not to her.

  
“You speak as if we might never die.” She looks righteous in her indignation. She embraced exile and came back scarred and gaunt, her light fluctuating dangerously, yet as proud as ever. Endangering herself through obstinacy, Tauriel had the flame of the revolutionaries and those that went first into battle and to their early grave. Their intentions were sublime but the means of attaining their goals would rather leave them dead and rotting in a trench, mourned, then forgotten. He knew the dangers of unleashed, flammable emotion.

His father and two-thirds of their population sent to Mandos in mere days, all because of rashness. They were dead. At least, Sauron had been weakened by their suicidal attack. Thranduil took comfort in that logic. Then, his wife... She did what he would have done a thousand times for Legolas. It doesn’t mean that he doesn’t regret it. He does but he understands the necessity of it and he doesn’t need to explain it to anyone, especially not to Tauriel.

  
“Elves are eternal. Only the senseless die without knowing what they’re sacrificing.” He looks straight into her bright brown eyes. "It’s good they are brought back in Aman, the land of peace and boredom…” He brushes at invisible specks of dust on his otherwise impeccable robe.

  
“Think of it, Tauriel, having to sit in councils for hours, having to listen to everyone’s opinion, paying attention to their most trivial concern… Not having spiders and beasts and deranged gods threatening to kill you at every step. You need to get used to it.”

For the first time in months, Tauriel laughs, free of the burden of her thoughts. It’s quite endearing. From time to time, she scrunches her nose at the frail, musty tomes and scrolls she brought. Carefully, with the intensity of one of the scribes, she extracts one of the leather bound books and opens it on the table. The yellow, faded parchment is lined with intricate letters in tengwar.

“This is strange… this script is so old… I have seen something similar to Thingol’s code but this defies any expectation.” For the first time in months, Thranduil recognizes mindfulness on Tauriel’s face. Something caught her attention. He looks at her as she follows every word with her index finger. “We should have this translated or at least, recopied. It’s falling apart.” She seems fascinated by what she has found. He believes her.

Tauriel had unrolled many scrolls and tomes like this and over the course of the past week, she tried to understand their content. This small book, looking so innocuous, has caught her attention, though. For quite a long time she reads in silence but he can see she has difficulty with the translation. Thranduil does not bother to look at the letters. All he does is gauge her reactions. Her face hides shock and horror. When did she start hiding from her king?  
Unasked, she pushes it toward him.

He’s never seen it either. It’s old, dating from Thingol’s time but does not belong to any of his courtiers. Instead, it bears the symbol of Nargothrond and Finrod Felagund. It is tengwar but it resembles more of a secret code than an open script. It is a journal, Felagund’s private journal. It has nothing to do among thousands of books and scrolls on trade and economy, its subject is… unexpected.

He knows the need to hide things in plain sight, especially memoirs. His father, Oropher, did so, filling a library shelf of his private musings, thoughts so deep that Thranduil felt like a traitor just leafing through them.

_“They love only each other. Everyone else hopes to catch their attention and hold it for more than a turning of the moon but no one managed that. To be so close to them and then to be discarded like an old thing leaves you forever wounded and unfulfilled. To be on the highest mountain and then to fall in the darkest pit- that’s their love. Corrosive, corruptive, heartless.”_

He stops reading when his eyes catch on the crudeness that follows on the next page but he continues unabated. _“Last night they were in the stables, fucking in the hay, their moans reaching my ears. They let me watch but they rarely bid me join them. I shall debase myself, only to feel the arduous, parasitic love of my cousins once more and only then they will heed me, pretending I am one of them.”_

He read it aloud, wondering at the sound of his voice through the calm, cool air.

Tauriel is silent, holding her forehead in the palms of her hands as if to protect her mind from this and Thranduil's eyes dart to the pages, enraptured. He has an inkling what this is about but doesn't tell her.

“This shouldn’t be here, my lord,” she murmurs.  
“Indeed, it shouldn’t but we cannot chastise the librarian, now...”  
“They were brothers, your majesty!” She sounds distressed, her face pallid and surprised.  
“Does it offend you?” Where Thranduil is strangely fascinated, Tauriel bites back her revulsion.

Would she curse at him if she knew what he and Legolas have done on a night such as this? Would she leave Mirkwood and her people thinking that no amount of strategising, planning and sacrifice would ever fight the darkness because it had already corrupted the father and the son?

Thranduil believes she would since she does not understand. And she shall, because to live is to learn. “Bring this to my suite. Oh, and the wine, Tauriel!”  
“Aran… The words die in her throat. She wants to oppose him, to appeal to his morality as the king. Fear and confusion bloom in her eyes. Thranduil wants to extract it and throw it in the wind. There's no such thing as morality in ruling over others. You either rule or you don't and Thranduil was strong enough to stomach it.

“Aren’t you curious about the journal that you found? Don’t you want to know more?” He persists, knowing she will cede.  
"But this is so unhale. Such liaisons… are most accursed!”  
“Exactly, my loyal counselor. This is why we need to understand it. I wish for you to know that here in the woods, the Nandor were quite open to such liaisons. No Vala has spoken to them of morals and of laws. We elves, weren’t too different from rutting animals, begetting children in plain sight and copulating not for the sake of heirs but for pleasure alone.”  
Her face is red and she wrinkles her nose at the remnants of dust. He doesn't tell her the whole thing...

The orgies between the trees, elves drunk on wine and drugged on mushrooms. Priestesses of the great hunter welcoming their god, Araw and young lads giving themselves freely to the initiation. The ceremony of fertility, of blood. The horned god smiling, then blowing his horn as he marked the beginning of the rites. Life over death. His ancestors, trapped in a most intimate form of love with each other. Bodies clinging to bodies, pleasure thrumming through them as currents on the sea of Cuivienen, not knowing son from daughter and taking in all, too dazed to think. Too long ago…almost forgotten but fresh still, in the minds of the Unbegotten Avari.  
Later, he heard about the high prince of the Noldor and his sons but that is his secret and he shall protect it with his life until Arda is unmade. Thranduil almost misses him but it's been too long since they have seen each other, too long, and he was already married, begetting a son of his own.

They read in silence, Thranduil sipping wine, Tauriel blushing every two pages or so. He wonders whether she solved the puzzle of their identities and watches her face. What would she say if she knew?  
Upset, she drinks her own glass and admits she cannot continue. "You're only tired, Tauriel. Take tomorrow off, go into the woods and listen to their stories. They are worse than what's written in this little book."

  
She just nods and looks at him with concern, as if asking _'what about you, Aran?'_ but Thranduil gives her a lecherous grin and pulls the book closer to him.  
"I will entertain myself, go, Tauriel."  
It's as he wants it…She does not worry. He likes her judging eyes on him, reminds him of his captain, always challenging, never submitting. Good...

  
Thranduil does not avoid him, on the contrary. He’s grateful for the numbness that the wine provided on that night. Legolas is as formal as usual, caught in his daily activities, with little time to spare. They always breakfast alone in the solitude of their rooms but for the evening when it is mandatory to show their face to the others.

His eyes don't miss anything. Legolas drinks wine and eats with ravenous appetite. Thranduil wonders why but is secretly pleased by the radiance surrounding him. Hale, unfettered, solid. As he should be. Legolas does not address him and Thranduil lets it pass. When time will be right...

 

For too long, Meludir has been kept away from him with Mirkwood duties and Thranduil starts to suspect his son has taken his suggestion to heart because the Silvan would never let exhaustion come between their amorous activities. One thing bothers him, though. He cannot bear to remember Legolas on that night because the moment his mind strays to the way his son panted and moaned and then spilled himself into his hand, his mind freezes. So Thranduil does not avoid him but his face remains blank as the memory starts blotting into mist. That night did not exist. He’s having a headache. Eru be merciful, Legolas is his son and if he inherited an inclination for debauchery, it was because of him. Thranduil has never doubted that.

On a surprisingly peaceful night, Meludir appears. He sneaks into his bed and crawls upon his resting body, already naked as is his habit of sleeping. He's being called from his slumber and Thranduil feels Meludir's mouth, dutifully working him to hardness, delighting in the capacity of his flesh to engorge and tremble. He suppresses a gasp as he is taken deep, all of a sudden, the head of his manhood hitting wetness and soft heat.

  
“I almost did not expect you here,” he groans, deeply satisfied by the warmth seeping into his muscles, urging them to tense and then shudder. His lust is rarely drawn out of him like this, like lava. He reins it in. Meludir’s mouth is occupied for a while, he feels a susurrated breath on is skin as his cock is released from the wet, perfect confines of his lover's mouth. Loyally, Meludir takes the king's cock in his hands and then attacks it with the flat of his tongue alternated by teasing sucks. The wet noises drive Thranduil mad with lust.

"Good boy, Meludir!" Thranduil feels the need to praise because he's being blessed by a rapturous feeling. He sometimes tends to forget how frustrating the need in his cock could get. His hands hold Meludir's head and guide that mouth back to work on his hardness.

"Take my cock deeper! Yes, like that."

Soon, he's thrusting roughly down Meludir’s sweet throat and shouting his orgasm. The flesh constricts around him and convulses. It makes it all the better, knowing his lover hasn’t spilled a drop.

As a distant melody, he hears his lover’s heavy breathing.  
“Come here,” he urges and kisses those swollen lips that served him so well. Meludir’s all flushed and sweaty and stark naked. He’s feverish, kissing him back hurriedly. He’s shuddering and slick, completely aroused and Thranduil wants to satisfy that hunger as soon as possible but there’s a desperate look in Meludir’s eyes when his fingers touch lower and lower.

There are bruises on his hips, bite marks on his chest and a huge purplish suction mark on his neck. He’s been adorned most beautifully. Thranduil should have guessed Legolas’ penchant for marking his lovers.  
"You come to me painted in purple and bite marks and then refuse my pleasure?" He haunts him, fills his nostrils with the wild smell of the Nandor. "My pleasure's your pleasure."

  
“Nay, my king!” He almost shrieks when Thranduil touches his engorged shaft. “I mustn’t!” the terrible blush spreading to Meludir’s neck and the downcast eyes speak volumes to him. He already suspects what’s going on but still disbelieving, he keeps asking with his voice and his body. He dreamed for many nights of touching his lover, unhindered by the gossip, of kissing him all over, mapping his precious golden skin with his lips and tongue. He wanted to devour his needy cock, to devour his little trembling hole. He moans at his rampant imagination, trapping Meludir with his hands, claiming his sweaty hips.

“What is it, my sweet? You were so eager for my touch, you tremble with the need of release…” Meludir’s flanks are slick with sweat, his chest heaving alarmingly, his face scrunched with tension. Defeated, he gives a little beastly growl and settles into position in his lap.  
Thranduil knows this docile pose and what it brings to him. "I wish to eat you out, to make you come untouched with my tongue deep inside of you. I know you like that, my boy."

Of course, he does, judging by the way his forest eyes fixate on Thranduil's mouth. Thranduil knows because he's heard him shout his pleasure at the top of his lungs with every piercing stab of his tongue. He thought he was going to die and go to Mandos but Thranduil reassured him that the Vala of the dead had absolutely no interest of stripping him of such keening pleasure, not when he was but two centuries and had too much to learn.

“I’m not allowed to speak of it, your majesty…”  
“Your majesty? What happened to your delightful words that urged me on all those nights?” Thranduil pretends to be outraged. If his son’s been playing games, there was no need to set such tough rules, not for Meludir.

The Silvan nodded. Cleared his throat awkwardly and began to speak. “My prince forbids me to address you otherwise than with the utmost respect, my king.”  
This means that the game is on, and Thranduil has it already figured out. But playing doesn’t seem so bad. He laughs lightheartedly as Meludir forces him to understand just by looking at him meaningfully.

“Of course, my sweet. And how should I call you tonight?”  
“Anything you want, I’ll be that which you truly desire.” His mouth is delicate against his chest and Thranduil indulges him, lightly caressing his back, his fingers wanting to scratch and leave small burns to add up to those Legolas inflicted, then Meludir bites his nipple, gently.

“Is this what my son taught you?” His eyes, so innocent, like a forest glade in autumn, glisten with hunger and mischief. Thranduil knows after seeing the flowery bruises on his Silvan's neck, the bites on his chest, the dark handprints on his hips that Legolas wanted to drive those lessons home, as a harsh master would to a belligerent pupil. He wonders how Meludir, tender as he is, took them.

“He taught me many things, my king.” He quips, his lithe fingers playfully trailing over his bicep.  
“In such short a time, beloved?” Thranduil can feel him squirm and briefly, he stares… he’s found the reason for it. Meludir’s weeping cock has been restricted by a cunning placement of a ring and his little boycunt has been plugged. Surprise hits him, then understanding. “Oh, I see… Has my son sent you to me to please me or to tease me?”

His pert bottom in the air, prostrate over Thranduil and licking appreciatively at his chest, Meludir moans his response. The boy is in good need of release. Thranduil knows. He feels how strained and desperate he got, just by sucking his cock. Yes, there is an unfathomable longing in those eyes, pupils blown off, the iris just a thin circle of moss green.

“The prince made me promise to wait for his arrival, my king.” He’s a step away from giving in. It must have been a hard lesson to master in such a short amount of time. So he is to join them after all? All of a sudden he’s intrigued at the prospect of Legolas joining them in bed. The thought that his son would make such an indecent proposal is slightly enticing, curiously peering from the secret depths of his mind. Thranduil refuses to dwell on the intricacies and possible complications of it. He ignores this not only because they have transgressed the morals of an elven generation in a single night but because they plan on putting to the test the very core of their beings.

Only the house of Feanor knew such debauchery and look where it got them. It’s such a pity that the Feanorions were his favorite history subject and one even got to be his lover, long before his father had thoughts of a kingdom of his own. He'd like to think that as a young Sinda, he pacified more than the naked fire of his body and extended his tenderness to his struggling, damned spirit.

To suppress such memories, Thranduil abandons caution to desire. His love for Mirkwood is unmistakeable. So is his love for his son and his lover. If it’s his son’s desire to know him as a lover, then so be it, Thranduil’s made up his mind an age ago when he lost everything and had to start from rock bottom.

“My son should hurry, my lovely boy,” he kisses Meludir’s nose tenderly, pulling the lithe, spritely body into him. The Silvan parts his legs to accommodate him and feeling generous, if not a bit concerned, Thranduil slowly massages the hard muscle of his bottom, already struggling to keep the plug inside. A low moan escapes from Meludir’s lips. It’s an unbearable pleasure his son demands from the Silvan. He wonders what Legolas would want from him.  
"Ai, my king, not yet," But Thranduil knows what may come next so he gives in easily to his indulgent curiosity. His fingers skim over Meludir's stretched rim, tantalizing with feather-light touches.

"You're so well oiled," he whispers into his lover's ear, making him gasp and squirm but Meludir tries, tries very hard to keep in place and to allow the next intrusion. Two fingers breach him at the same time and he almost shrieks from their fulness. "And this toy, so big and so hard. It must have been difficult to hold it inside of you, a thing so cold, when all that you desire is a hot cock, spilling and coating your insides, warming you up from within…how did you manage all day, my adorable Nandorin boy?" There is a trace of concern in his brow but Thranduil doubts Meludir would do all this by himself. He's averse to pain and discomfort. Taking that plug inside his tight boycunt must have been an ordeal for him. "I wonder how can you still take my fingers. Your body is so greedy!" Indeed, Meludir's passage seems to suck his fingers in. The movement reminds Thranduil of the coiling and uncoiling of a forest snake with too large a prey. Thranduil will give in and allow himself to be swallowed by it. Such mesmerizing movements, full of terror and tenderness, the unbearable need to be filled up, he can understand. Of the many pleasures which he sampled over the ages, he never imagined Legolas would brazenly push this one on the plate. His thoughts drift to Legolas, persuasive and reassuring as he whispers in Meludir's ear to take them both, promising him anything, just to see himself buried in his pliant body. The image burns through his mind. Something about it makes him shiver.

Only heavy breathing and the tension in of tired muscles is Meludir's response.  
"Your sweet boycunt just wants more, don't you agree?" Sometimes he wants to be sure that what he's imagining is possible.

The Silvan nods, fearlessly yet lost in Thranduil's pale gaze. It's yes, yes all over again but Thranduil will ask repeatedly, delighting in the crystalline voice. Meludir's candor wins him over. Red cheeks and glistening lips, sweat trickling down his eyebrow -Thranduil licks at it, derailing it from its course, trying to soothe.

"I want you and him." Is this enough? Thranduil wonders. "Ai…" Thranduil threatens to pluck the thing out of his passage, only to have Meludir constrict against it desperately. "Please, please!" His kisses are blind, like fragile butterflies chased by a storm. "Prince Legolas prepared me all evening. It hurt but I wanted it, more than anything. He said it will be necessary when you, when..." Meludir admits, hiding his head in the crook of his king's neck as if ashamed to end his confession. "When you both take me." Smirking, Thranduil already knows he will give Legolas anything he asks for, and more, and so he continues to tease and pinch the pert bottom of his lover.

"Don’t torture him so, Adar." Naked and luminous, Legolas appears from behind the curtain, holding what looks like a dark velvet satchel. “I brought gifts,” he says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My Legolas always seems to appear at the last moment. He always seems to plan ahead and join his father's games.  
> \+ I hope I was gentle with Meludir. He's such an adorable elf I wouldn't hurt him, pinky promise!  
> All mistakes are mine. I swear, my eyes seem so accustomed to them that they skip the entire thing. I think that this will be 11 chapters long... but who knows?  
> If you're curious about the "Maglor thing", you can check out some fics about him. He always seems to end up near Thranduil, somehow. He's one of my favorite Feanorions! [Here you go!](http://archiveofourown.org/series/635774)  
> Anyway, thank you all for being here with me, for prodding me on! I will try and update weekly.  
> Please, let me know your opinions!  
> :)<3 <3


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thranduil, Meludir, Legolas on a bed... only it's not what Thranduil expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this was long overdue, dear readers.  
> Enjoy!

Thranduil does not think that orcs were once elves. It is not because of some absurd sense of pride and it is not because he does not believe in involution. Orcs are simply that… orcs. Their existence is proof enough that they too are part of the music of Eru, distinct parts of a disturbing dissonance in the order of things.

The music says it all, the music they all create. Every particle is always ready to change, always necessary to continue in a fashion or another. Thranduil has a part in the music, so does his son, so does Meludir, so does everyone. There is nothing set in stone.

He has to make a decision and act upon it.

The laws and customs were rich in their interdictions. Any breach should have been felt like a stroke of darkness in flesh and spirit, a degeneration of their very nature should have occurred. Lying with kin was seen as an offense as heinous as murder. It had to inspire disgust in the act and disgust with the other.

 Men lying with other men and women lying with women was a crime as great as lying with an orc. Even if that happened willingly.

Respecting the laws and customs was seen by the Valar as the epitome of good behavior. The Valar approved these customs and spread them.

But there was only one problem.

It wasn’t the Valar who wrote them. It was the elves themselves. Elves that left for the undying lands as soon as they could, elves that did not linger here on Arda, by starlight alone.

Elves who came up with the idea that Arda was marred, that orcs were but a result of elves being tortured.  Were those elves guilty for their inability to fight back their sorrow through Bauglir’s tortures? Looking back, Thranduil does not think there is a worse fate than that of the elves. At least the dwarves don’t have to live eternally until they turn back to the stone of which they were supposedly made.

And elves did lie. He has row upon row of proof, inscribed in stone, recorded on paper.

Elves were left to shoulder darkness by themselves, they were left to be preyed upon by greater forces and when they retaliated, they were seen as criminals, as dangerous, as corrupted. Those who picked up the sword were the first to be shunned.

He made a vow and carried it for days in the silence of the confines of his mind. If darkness came to be and worm its way into their hearts, he wouldn’t do it by force. He would do it through pleasure. Wasn’t a cousin’s spurned affection, heightened to the form of sin, responsible for the fall of Gondolin? His son is no Maeglin. Mirkwood is no Gondolin, whose fall was long overdue, in his opinion.

Sickening, disgusting, threatening to break any taboo they may pretend to have. He welcomes him for he is radiant and smiling with mischief. Legolas has been appropriately named the jewel of Mirkwood.

He pulls Meludir to his side, hands carding through his hair, forcing it in a resemblance of decorum. There is nothing innocent about this display, he knows better. Two sweaty bodies, worked up, heaving, reeking of desire. Meludir trembling just so with anticipation.

“Come, my son,” he invites and takes his time to revel in the beauteous presence of Legolas, naked and confident of his charms. He watches intently as his son pulls a vial from the satchel.

“We’ll need this, I assure you.”

And then, with his eyes trained on Meludir, Legolas continues, extracting several oval seedpods and shaking them amusedly.

“And this…” he practically beamed at Thranduil whose expression darkened at the sight of the seeds. “May I borrow your wine, father?”

Those were the same aphrodisiac seeds that Meludir used to spike Legolas’ drink. His eyebrows twisted at the cunning of his own son.

“You thought I didn’t know?” he was smiling cheekily now at his father, very pleased with himself. “You underestimate me. Unlike you, Meludir learned his lesson well.” He turned all his attention to his new lover then, eliciting a small gasp from him. Meludir was now trying to disentangle himself from the sweaty sheets. “Isn’t that right, Meludir? Tell my Adar about it.” Cheeks aflame and body swaying with need, he croaked something unintelligible as a response.

“What did you say, my beautiful? ”

“Y-you’ve taught me well, my prince.” Legolas handed him the drink.

“This will keep you going, love.”

Meludir swallowed hard - he must be dehydrated from his previous activities- and his whole body shook with the force of overcoming the need to press into Thranduil’s searching hand. He took several swigs and scrunched his nose. Almost immediately, he started breaking into a sweat.

“This isn’t about me, Meludir… although I can say that I wouldn’t have played if I was completely disinterested.” Legolas took the goblet from the trembling hands and downed the last dregs of it.

“Oh, this actually works, Adar.”

“And did you doubt it?” retorted Thranduil who knew the effects of the spiked drink himself.

Legolas smirked. His cheeks were becoming flushed with blood and there was a slight tremble to his otherwise sure posture.

“I feel tingly all over,” he laughed.

The bed was huge and Legolas climbed on it like a panther. Thranduil had to admit, his son looked gorgeous in the golden light of the lamps. His warrior’s physique spoke of discipline and endurance. Well-defined pectorals, a hard abdomen, strong thighs, lean arms, all muscle and sinew, blue veins showing as he flexed and relaxed in his advance. Legolas was prowling and for a brief moment, Thranduil felt the excitement of youth course through his body.

“Adar…” Legolas purred. “You’ve been taking good care of my little pet, I see.” With a brusque movement, he tugged at Meludir and pulled him in his arms, a gesture which reassured the Silvan elf but alarmed Thranduil. Apparently, his son got very good at playing games behind his back.

His eyes were clear, devoid of any cloud. Legolas stared at him expectantly but before any of them could say anything else, Meludir just pushed Thranduil away and plopped directly on Legolas’ and started kissing him as if they were the only ones in the room.

And for a while, it seemed they were.

Thranduil was just pleased to watch them own his bed and mark his sheets. With a whimper, Meludir took the plug out and threw it somewhere. Legolas’s hands darted immediately to his lover’s tender bottom.

“I don’t want that ever again,” he complained in his son’s arms.

“Why did you want it in the first place? I didn’t ask you to take it in.” This was his son, dangerous, calculating.

“It just sounded right at the time, it’s just a pain to keep for so long.” Legolas kissed him to soothe and murmured in a very uncharacteristic manner.  

“Oh, love, you’re wonderful.” Legolas was devouring Meludir bit by bit, pushing him to lay on the bed, sprawled out and malleable like a rag doll.

Thranduil felt like an intruder, listening in to private conversations, barging in on intimacy he’s never seen before. His son and Meludir, lovers, in his bed. He couldn’t take the image out of his head, it started catching roots and extending like nothing he’s imagined before. This was reality.

“Come, Ada.” Breathless, Legolas invited him to join them but Thraduil felt awkward.

There was his son and Meludir, both terribly aroused and inebriated on aphrodisiacs, both sweaty and moving as if they’ve rehearsed this many times. The familiarity between them struck him at first. He did not feel left out as much as he felt manipulated. Legolas’ eyes burned crystal blue and indigo and Meludir was moaning and mewling. With a precise movement, Legolas freed his lover from all the constraints of their toys. He threw Thranduil one more look as if to say ‘suit yourself’ and proceeded on bringing Meludir to climax with his mouth.

Meludir, always the sweet, thoughtful lover, arched his neck to look at Thranduil upside down. He could have resisted but he knew he shouldn’t. He was invited, after all. Thranduil relented and caressed the smooth lines, the sensitive chest, the long, auburn hair.

 He kisses Meludir, wants him to feel good, to have his wish come true.

Before this, he had a vague idea how they would proceed but now, it seems he has to take instructions from Legolas who wants to possess Meludir fully. He begins taking him gently, breathing in the crook of his knee, encouraging him for later. Although Thranduil kissed Meludir and began taking care of the rest, he feels completely ignored.

They only have eyes for each other, it seems. It hurts him a bit. They’ve taken over his bed, over his life.

When he joins in, he holds Meludir’s head on his shoulder. Legolas is fast and ardent and they move in tandem within Meludir’s sleek passage. Thranduil is careful and passive while Legolas pushes further, whispering nonsense. He feels Legolas and it's the strangest feeling.

Meludir can do nothing but moan and scream, accommodating them both. There's a lot to take in and Thanduil's glad the Silvan was prepared so well. He feels wonderfully tight and shuddery, Thranduil's feels his heart, beating impossibly fast.  He roars a long stream of _yes_ and _please_ and _hurry_. His hands are gripping Legolas’ hair, tugging it this way and that, he bites Legolas’ lips until there’s blood.

He’s never been like this with Thranduil. Never.

He wishes he drank that wine now. He’s too awake in this madness of skin and sex.

He wishes to retreat but as if reading his mind, Legolas clutches him. His hands are clammy, clawing. He watches Thranduil, the muscles of his face tensing and relaxing rhythmically. He’s very close to his release, Thranduil can feel it. The twitching and the sensory overload that precedes an orgasm.

Between hot puffs of breath and the uncoiling of their mutual desire, Thranduil feels something he hasn’t in ages. Jealousy.

Legolas, pale-faced, sweaty and wild-eyed, separated by the body between them. His arms hold past Meludir and dig in Thranduil’s flesh. Thranduil supports Meludir, his thighs  tired after sustaining the effort.

He’s going to be kissed. He anticipates it. A kiss, not this wild bout of orgiastic sex. Legolas has a faraway look in his eyes. His lips, so red. Thranduil wants it. Of course, he wants it.

Instead, Legolas kisses Meludir.

“I fucking love you,” he mutters into Meludir's mouth. He’s already come, Thranduil feels it, hot and runny and loses himself  with a twinge of regret just before Legolas pulls Meludir on him, cradling him protectively, rolling them on the bed away from his father.

They kiss, or rather Legolas does the kissing while Meludir drifts into sleep.

He kisses Meludir’s shoulders, praises him and whispers those maddening, anger-inducing (for Thranduil) words. Those three heinous words he did not expect to come from his son's mouth anytime sooner. Not directed at anyone else. Anyone else... but him.

Does he? (Love him.)Or is it another game?

“You thought you were the only one?” The voice is sleepy, languid. Legolas lies satisfied with a passed-out Meludr in his arms. He didn’t know his son to be so gentle, protective and appreciative of the Silvan. What did he think, that Legolas was borrowing Meludir to get back at him? What a stupid thought.

“I didn’t think anything, Legolas. I thought you hated my games, you hated my debauched, stupid games.” His voice creaks a little. He sounds hurt and he’s desperate to hide it. Instead of closeness, he feels… disconnected.

That night, he doesn’t sleep because his bed is not his own. He feels otherworldly. He didn’t know what was that he’s been missing. He’s sure he’ll never find it, not between these sheets. Thranduil expected something else. He prepared for it.

What did you expect, you old fool?

He chastises himself.

Shadowy corridors and flickering torches. Even his lover was not his own, not that Thranduil was possessive. He wasn’t. He just didn’t expect this. He reaches the council room and plops there on his throne. Pours himself some wine and stares into the dark. He actually expected Legolas to want him…like that.

Now he cannot take him out of his mind and it’s poison.

 His own son.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your sustained support!  
> Kudos and comments are treats!  
> :)


	11. Finale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thranduil knows that he has to let his son go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the ending of "Tradition".  
> Thank you all for being here for me!  
> [Here](http://hauntedpoem.tumblr.com/), let's cry our eyes together, now that it's over!  
> -  
> ~The soundtrack for this chapter- [Vieille Priére Bouddhique](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cGUGgIoJ_w) (old Buddhist prayer) composed by Lili Boulanger, a French Conservatoire graduate, before she even turned 25.  
> I thought the choir sounded quite "elvish" and tragic... so there...~

In reality, Legolas was terrified.  The terror gripped his mind but instead of freezing his thoughts altogether, it settled there like a blanket of mist. Every possibility, every outcome, if he could think of it, that very thing was already happening and with a speed that his senses could not perceive, elvish though they were.

 

There was calmness, a perilous tranquility that permeated the air that night. When the horn was blown and the leaves were shaking in the freezing cold wind, their music as harsh as metal, he got to know. His heart was seized by an unbearable feeling. His insides trembled, he felt altered from bones to skin.

 

It was an absurd sense of loss that he misunderstood in his haste to get to the gardens. He did not understand it for he lived in its shadow all his life. Part of his soul was already floating above him with the call of Mandos. It was a step behind in manifestation of what the wizards had seen and the blessed ones probably dreamed of.

It was happening and it was ineluctable.

It was time.

-

 

The prince of Mirkwood refused to catch up with the external horror. Frozen on the spot but with a reeling mind, trapped in the gruesome scene. There wasn’t much blood but Legolas knew it was so because they couldn’t see everything properly on a moonless night. It was unusually dark and only a single lantern resisted the assault, its glass broken, throwing an eerie flicker around them from where it has been thrown, among fallen branches and disturbed earth.

He should have known this would happen. That mental chastisement kept infiltrating itself into his mind, numbing for a while the true meaning of the scene.

But he wasn't meant to and the ease with which he welcomed resignation felt foreign to him.

 

The cold air grew dulcet with elf blood. Like wild berries, crushed in a cruel hand, it smelled compelling.

He does not remember when his mother died. All he knows are rumours but this is how Thranduil, his king must have felt. Legolas was covered in her blood. How must his father have felt when he had to bury his wife and extract from her mangled arms a bawling tear stricken babe?

His mind was surprisingly calm although he was terrified. His eyes looked at the injured, and fully conscious, they passed over the lump near the fallen tree trunk. He was aware in that moment of the frigid air, of the ballooning spider nets floating about his face, the crunching ground, tiny twigs snapping under his step, suddenly heavy with gravity’s force. He looked at the footprints. Numerous, irreverent to the very ground. Squashed herbs and torn branches.

The orcs outnumbered and overpowered the three elves.

They were too young. But could Mirkwood dispense with greater forces just to keep an eye on that hideous creature?

 

Lym’s face was covered in blood, she would never be the same again and Lethuin was heavily injured. He couldn’t look then. He knew.

Three elves, deceived by a spawn of darkness.

Gollum! Gollum! Gollum! He screamed in the cell. He would plead and he would cry as if enduring some heinous torment.

Pity killed Meludir. He lay there with his neck torn, his chest trenched by crude axes. His beautiful hair clogged with mud.

It was all a haze around them, a white, thick fog. And Legolas could not remember anything except for the creature's distorted grimaces and the threats it would make behind the bars of its enclosure.

-

Meludir was a young elf. He didn't have sufficient experience on the field and was too soft and kind for immediate reaction and ruthlessness. His heart and spirit haven't been scorched by the pain and loss that comes with ages of living on Arda marred.

-

It was all a blur when Legolas burst into Tauriel's office, disturbing scrolls and books of letters and peaceful dust. She convinced Elros and Feren, gathered some food for sustenance and enough arrows to fill their quivers and the four of them went after the orcs.

Spiders got in their way, so did the threatening everlasting darkness of Dol Guldur but they tried to keep up with Legolas who seemed moved by something stranger than fury and revenge. They killed some stray orcs but for some reason, they lost the group that took the creature. 

Legolas went blindly on and on, Elros got injured by a poisoned orcish arrow and Feren was sent back on the horse to the King's Halls.

They rode a day and a night until they reached the tower. There was a crushing emptiness about the place, one that could not be translated into words. What beasts and dark creatures they found there, they have killed and when they found one that seemed remotely aware of what was happening, Legolas began asking it questions.

It took Tauriel several minutes before she decided she did not want to endure Legolas' methods of persuasion on the orc. This elf was not the Legolas she knew and she was afraid for him. This place was doing strange things to their mind, altering their thoughts and terrifying their spirits.

Reason didn't seem to appeal to him anymore but in his maddening chase, he urged her to ride away with him from the dark tower.

They were too far from their target, they have been detracted and Legolas, in his blind state of rage has fallen into their trap. Those orcs did not take the creature to Dol Guldur. They did not take Gollum anywhere near the elvish realms. They were headed straight to Mordor and there could be only one answer to that terrible question that remained unanswered. When they reached the marshes, they were both splattered in black gooey blood and dirty from the road. It was impossible not to look down at the creatures and corpses floating in the waters.

Sauron, the abhorred was to rise again and that creature had something his dark armies needed very badly.

-

The horses were frothing at the mouth. they were tired. her stallion's heart was beating too fast as if bleeding internally. Both animals were being pushed too hard. Tauriel could not continue this terrible chase that got them nowhere. They would be outnumbered. They needed rest. Resilience was in their eternal spirit, but they needed to show mercy to their horses. At least, Tauriel thought that way.

This was not chasing Azog and Bolg with the fell bloodthirsty bats and crebain over their heads. This was larger than that, she was sure but Legolas did not seem to actually understand that they were not headed to victory in this. Mordor was already filling up with the army of darkness and two elves could not fight it.

It was suicide. She had to stop it by any means.

Tauriel did that, even if it meant bringing Legolas back to the caves, unconscious on his horse.

-

Some things could not be explained.  Some things just passed into the dark maw of time as nothingness. As mere ashes.

Mirkwood, the forest, was not safe. The spiders kept breeding with a tremendous urgency; they kept growing as if the dark of night was enough food for their bellies. When he woke up, Legolas found himself weakened as if the nightmares kept him prisoner for three days.

"What have you done to me, Tauriel?" He was groggy and confused; the evil of that foggy night seemed to be leaving him with every step they took towards their home.

"What anyone would have done in my situation," Tauriel responded not looking at him and marched on, intent on reaching the gates of stone before the night fell.

-

His father's face was grim, he couldn't argue with that. Elros might have lost his leg and Feren barely made it to the gates, bitten by a spider. Lym and Lethuin were still recovering.

His father took upon the duty of burning Meludir's body and collecting his ashes. They later held a funeral.

He could not help but notice that the wine was flowing more liberally than on any other occasions if the death of his lover could be called an occasion and not a catastrophe. Legolas would rather drown in wine because the moment his sobriety threatened to penetrate the surface of his mind, the pain came back tenfold.

He would rather stare at his trembling hands, hard and toughened, filled with scratches and bruises from loosing arrow after arrow on orcs, goblins and wargs. He would rather memorise the contours of the sculpted wood before him. He must have given Tauriel a terrible scare with his careless behaviour.

He could only imagine for he could not remember much from his rage-addled actions.

This was no way to honour Meludir, he knew. But lovers did cry, didn't they? They were supposed to be crippled by pain and guilt and loss. There were supposed to be visible signs on the faces of the living to attest to their loss, like what Tauriel has done.

A sign of grief? Was that too difficult to squeeze out of the trenches of his spirit and offer to the departed? Legolas only felt self-pity and that not only angered him even more but disturbed him entirely.

He walked the lonely corridors as if a ghost, not drunk, not poisoned yet by the liquor of the grape but by that of his own doing. In Mandos' Halls, they could all go. Would all go, he corrected himself. If orcs were being bred and tortured out of the earth, there wasn't much time left anyway. No time to think, for elves could sometimes see into the future as well as see into the distance in the midst of a blizzard.

Legolas could. He could lose himself.

And he knew there was someone that would do it with him, for him, to him, unlike Tauriel who had to knock him unconscious for his own safety.

Taurielâ€¦she didn't have to know. No one had to. And no one would.

The elvish mourning chants continued to ring in his ears, echoing in the entire cave that was the Elvenking's halls.

-

Days passed and Legolas watched as the skies turn pitch black with the messengers of the enemy. He scattered Meludir's ashes in the river and hoped, against hope that he will be returned to them soon. If Mandos allowed if Meludir wanted to. He would be here, still, like Glorfindel. Or he would be in Aman, walking its shores and looking pensively to where Arda may be an ocean away.

he rather liked that thought. He would sleep peacefully at night to know Meludir safe and happy in Valinor or at least healing in the halls of Mandos.

 

He chose to exhaust his thoughts of his lover if that was even possible. It meant long days spent planning and tracking, connecting the dots on various reports of the troops and spending nights on the march wardens' trails. And then, the messengers have come and his father lapsed again into an atypical sadness.

-

Thranduil felt it like a stab in the heart. He felt it for each and every one of them, his late wife included and when they gave the alarm for an attack, he knew that one of them has perished at the crude and cruel orcish blades.

He knew it wasn't his son and at that, he felt relieved but only for a short while. Then, the panic began and he heard more than he was able to see, horses running at great speed through the trees, through the fog.

He arrived too late at the scene, only to see crushed flowers and cut branches, on the trail of deep, steep footprints. There have been many of them, with the precise mission to bring the creature called Gollum back. Back in the houses of healing, he saw two of the injured elves. Lethuin and Lym now scarred forever. Where was the third?

He saw it, then, a body covered by white cloth, on a cold, marble slab; and when he approached to lift the veil, he was almost afraid for confirmation. His face was serene and beautiful, even in death. He pulled the fabric away, revealing deep chest wounds. No one could have survived this.

The orcs attacked in formation, clearly singling Meludir out to keep the other two elves occupied, trying to defend him while other orcs mangled the trees and helped or rather dragged down the creature Gollum.

Thranduil could feel something very dark was brewing when Mithrandir the wizard brought it in. He didn't even deem to explain it properly to the king of Mirkwood, but Thranduil felt the weariness emanating from the maia. He was relieved he could get rid of Gollum with clear instructions to the elves.

Keep an eye on the creature, always.

There was no doubt that Gollum has been tortured to become this way. Elves have been tortured by the dark enemy as well, their essence disturbed, their souls fleeting the wretched bodies and leaving it to the darkness who did as they deemed fit, corrupting the flesh and using it as the basis for the orcs and Uruk-hai and other mangled beasts.

Thranduil watched Gollum in fascination. The madness, the despair, the irreparable way in which his flesh has been tortured and consumed. On the other hand, what the creature kept mumbling about and wailing every single hour, grated on his nerves. What was this precious, that distorted so much the creature's senses?

Doubt and darkness have been sown in Thranduil's court. He wished he denied Mithrandir this task.

The nights echoed with Gollum's distressing shouts.

"Ours, the precious, ours! Give it back, thief! Baggins!"

A shiver travelled his spine. Baggins. How was that possible? Did this sordid think know the hobbit who has travelled with the dwarves to Erebor decades ago?

He listened until the creature simply quieted don one day and just sniggered in the night.

"They will come and bring us to him, precious, they will..."

It sounded like a threat to Thranduil. Who were they? What exactly was this precious it kept raving about?

He had an inkling about that but for some reason, he preferred not to dwell on such thoughts for too long for they seeped all the strength from his bones.

-

Legolas came back to him and Thranduil thought he would fade if something happened to his son. Tauriel, bless her, brought him back, barely conscious and exhausted, covered in orc blood and animal guts. He was positively filthy and Thranduil took upon himself the task of caring for him. For days, he stayed abed, plagued by nightmares and guilt.

His eyes were filled with indescribable pain and no amount of revenge acts would heal the soul wound that burdened Legolas.

When Thranduil presented him with the ashes of his lover, Legolas took the urn and left for days, secluded in Mirkwood's secret places. For a while, he felt he has failed his son when he disappeared again.

-

 The festival of starlight was a small ceremony that needed to be held to honour Varda's creations, the ones that have been their solace for ages until the Valar thought to create the moon and the sun.

Elves drank and ate and rejoiced. They danced on lilting tunes and sung as if to defy the darkness. Legolas was there, nursing a bottle of wine, staring right into his soul.

It was good to know that he wasn't avoiding Thranduil, although not hard to imagine that Legolas was still shrouded in a sense of debilitating loss.

He motioned towards him and Legolas followed as if he expected that to happen.

For decades, Thranduil had tried to quench the lust and the madness that followed it. Their relationship was one of civility, not of familiarity, although many things, among which Meludir has played a part, have brought them closer than kin. It was a border that Thranduil thought many times of crossing and the consequences unravelled before his eyes in devastating ways. He ditched his alcohol imbued delusions and embraced less dangerous pleasures.

 

He was Legolas' father, he was the king. Madness was unbecoming of him, even though he would take it upon himself if it meant having his son whole and sane. A plan was forming in his mind and Thranduil's mind played with the possibilities. 

 

Through dim lit corridors filled with inebriated elves and echoes of revelry, Thranduil walked sure-footed and focused. He reached his suite and knew Legolas was following. He felt the embrace from behind, warm, encasing and strong.

He could give in to temptation, they could live here until the end of time, secluded in Mirkwood, a fortress unwittingly guarded by the dangerous orcs and poisoned and corrupted trees, but that was not something he wished for his people. Giving into base desires, meant giving into darkness.

"Wait, Legolas," he whispered and could hear his son making himself comfortable in his bed, perhaps fuelled by his despair, perhaps fuelled by ribald memories.

He knew exactly what to do.

 

From a cabinet next to his desk, Thranduil extracted a small phial. He uncorked it and poured it into a glass of wine. This was the last one, the last of the enchanted river, a cure for pain, for when the memories and the past became too much to take.

He saved it for himself, for when his beloved died but despite favouring the thought, he never acted upon it.

Yet he would do that to Legolas, take that choice from him.

No, to take that pain from him. How was this any different than to bed him?

 

"Here, my beloved," he placed the goblet into his son's hands. "Drink and forget all that pains you. Forget all that hurts you, all that confuses you, all that disturbs you."

 

And Legolas took the goblet with confidence now, thinking those were just words that would soon be drowned by the writhing of their flesh on the sheets.

So he drank and Thranduil watched him fall asleep, unable to protest.

-

In three day's time, Legolas left for Imladris to give the council his apologies on Mirkwood's behalf. Thranduil knew that his son would not be back for a very long time and that gave him both strength and immense pain.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is the end, but there is hope, people!  
> :)  
> AN: I am convinced that the events described here have come as a bit of a shock to many of you. I completely agree, I too have shocked myself by writing it but at the end of the last sentence, I have been overcome by a complete sense of rightness. And I needed that. In the end, no matter how much the readers anticipate something, I am still writing this. I still have to pour myself into this and I'd rather stay true to my ideas than fake it with a happy-ending.   
> No, I did not punish my characters. They wait for no absolution and they know it. However, I felt the need to make my Legolas at least semi-compliant with the "innocent yet strong willed" elf from Tolkien's LOTR.   
> -  
> Comments, shouts and arguments are open. It makes me happy to see people's reactions on this fic. You are entitled to an opinion.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work of fiction. I am not making any profit from writing this. You must keep in mind that all characters are considered adult and consenting. Consent in this fic *is NOT implied*, it's actually expressly mentioned. Real choice and consent are an important part of my writing. See for yourself!


End file.
